


Next Level

by battleshidge (Amiria_Raven)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Online Gaming, Crushes, M/M, Mutual Pining, Online Gaming AU, Pining, Slow Burn, klance, perhaps other minor pairings later, video game violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-18 03:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 37,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiria_Raven/pseuds/battleshidge
Summary: “Dammit, Blue, don’t die on us yet! We only just started!”Red’s voice snapped in his ears, and Lance cursed under his breath. He tried to backpedal quickly, but being flat on his back with the enemy looming above made for certain movement limitations. On top of that, he was already injured, and he could see the red patch spreading across his thigh. He could really use some of Hunk’s portable healing pods, that was for sure. And that, Lance observed, was a very nasty looking knife that was about to plunge straight through his chest.Well, shit.





	1. Level One

**Author's Note:**

> HERE IT IS.
> 
> I have had this story idea since the weekend of Kansas City Comic Con, in the hotel room, where a friend was trying to help me with ideas for a completely different AU and somehow it spiraled into this one. It's taken me about a week to finally finish this first chapter, and it's late, so I'm going to edit it in the morning, but please take it.
> 
> NOTE: Some of the Spanish used in this fic may seem out of place, but it is Cuban slang. The lovely [darkavenue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darkavenue/pseuds/darkavenue) has been a huge help with this! I'll put the intentions/meanings, and the literal translations in the end note!
> 
> Updates for this may be slow, as I have another fic I want to finish before devoting more time to this one, but rest assured that it will be continued. :)

 

“ _Dammit, Blue, don’t die on us yet! We only just started!_ ”

Red’s voice snapped in his ears, and Lance cursed under his breath. He tried to backpedal quickly, but being flat on his back with the enemy looming above made for certain movement limitations. On top of that, he was already injured, and he could see the red patch spreading across his thigh. He could really use some of Hunk’s portable healing pods, that was for sure. And _that_ , Lance observed, was a very nasty looking knife that was about to plunge straight through his chest.

Well, _shit_.

And then, with a flash, the blade was arcing downwards. With another curse, Lance tried rolling out of the way. The knife skittered off of his armor, and he managed to roll to his feet, turning to face his attacker as quickly as he could.

“ _Blue, what’s the deal?_ ” another voice asked over the headset, though Kuro’s voice was a lot calmer than Red’s. “ _Your vitals are going down!_ ”

“You think I don’t know that?” his voice was higher than usual as he dodged around his opponent. The damn knife clipped his side, just beneath his armor, and Lance cursed. “I’m a little busy here with this _ambush_!”

His eyes searched around until finally a glint caught his attention. He lunged for it and came up with an energy pistol just in time to whirl around around and try to fire a shot.

 _Try_ being the key word, because he’d only just noticed the empty clip. He cursed again and danced away from the knife, reaching into the pouch at his belt for some rounds. He heard Pidge shouting out some sort of warning to someone, but he ignored it in favor of loading the gun with a plasma capsule. The capsule was about three-quarters full, so it should give him at least six shots, and he tried to focus on his assailant.

He’d been too distracted.

“Oh, shi—!” he started to curse again, trying to dodge even though his back was against the wall, before a spray of blood showered him. With a yelp, he realized that someone had attacked his assailant from behind. There was a blade through his chest, and with a grunt, the blade was removed. And standing there, in all his glory, stood a character flagged as his teammate. Lance coughed a little and told him, “I, uh, could have handled myself there, Red.”

Over the headset, he heard the disgruntled groan and then Red shot back, “ _Oh, yeah? Maybe next time I’ll just let you die, then_.”

Lance laughed, standing up straight. And then he caught it—in the corner of the screen, just a hint of movement. He whipped the pistol up and Red took a step back.

“ _Dude, Blue, what the fuck are you doing?!_ ” the sharp, angry tone sounded, but Lance fired a shot and watched as the enemy behind Red crumpled to the ground. The dialogue box popped up above his head with the _DECEASED_ label, and Lance started laughing.

“Payback, Red,” he announced. “Now I don’t owe you anything. And I need to find a new place. This one’s obviously been compromised. Yo, Pidge, got any new places for me to set up shop?”

Lance moved forward to pick up his sniper rifle and other assorted gear from the ground as Red grumbled over the comms. They wouldn’t thank each other for that, even though Lance probably _would_ have died without Red’s help, and Red would have probably at least been injured by the enemy that snuck up behind them, but that was all part of their friendship. Rivalry. Whatever it was.

“ _Well, hurry up. They’ll be coming at us if you don’t move soon, Blue,_ ” Red sounded impatient, and a glance showed that he was keeping a lookout. He’d already looted the bodies, and Lance dismissed the inventory notifications on the bottom of his screen.

“Oh, you’re going to escort me? I’m flattered, Sir Knight,” even though Red couldn’t see, Lance fluttered his eyelashes coquettishly, then laughed.

“ _Oh, stop flirting, you idiot,_ ” Pidge’s bored voice came across. “ _I’ve got a spot. Marking your map now. Make sure you’re not seen this time, Blue_.”

“Yeah, yeah! Thanks, Pidgeroo!”

“ _Pidgery_ ,” her voice grumbled. Lance grinned. “ _It’s Pidgery, Blue._ ”

“Same difference,” he retorted, and then ignored her grumbling to add, “Ready when you are, Sir Red, my knight in shining, blood-splattered armor.”

“ _Don’t you ever shut up?_ ” Red groaned over the line, but Lance could hear the slight grin in his voice. “ _We’ve got a way to go. I hope you have enough points in stealth._ ”

Lance laughed again, tucking in behind Red as they started to leave the rooftop, and then asked, “What do you take me for, Red? What kind of sniper would I be if I wasn’t able to _hide_ from the _enemy_ snipers? Huh?”

“ _The kind that gets ambushed before he can even finish setting up,_ ” the rogue drawled in that very deliberate way he had when he wanted to make Lance feel a little foolish...or work him up. Whichever one it was, both had worked. Lance flushed a little and scattered his thoughts, searching for a comeback.

“Hey, accidents happen, man!” he whined.

 _Damn_ , that hadn’t even been half as smooth as he’d been going for. It earned him a snort from Red and what sounded like Hunk, and a cackle from Pidge. A low groan bubbled from the back of his throat and he followed Red in silence for a few moments. While they moved, he pressed the _C_ key to pull up the character menu, went to the skills tab, and searched for his stealth. The number glaring back at him was 597.

“Dude, my stealth’s at like six hundred!” he cried, eyes skimming the rest of his stats quickly before closing the window to keep his eyes on their surroundings. “I usually don’t have problems setting up shop, you know.”

“ _Wow, Blue, you’ve actually got a really good stealth stat for a sniper_ ,” Pidge drawled, her tone sarcastic.

“ _He really does, Pidge,_ ” Hunk cut across, and then he continued, “ _I mean, considering that a lot of snipers underestimate the value of stealth, we’re lucky that La—Blue doesn’t! They put all their points in precision and make sure that their gear boosts go into that as well. It’s why he doesn’t usually have a problem hiding and why he gets so many kills!_ ”

“Thank you, Hunk!” Lance exclaimed.

“ _I know, I know,_ ” Pidge grumbled, “ _I’m actually a little surprised. Blue’s not_ completely _useless, I guess._ ”

“I resent that, Pidge!”

“ _Guys, focus,_ ” Kuro’s voice cut in, and Lance was honestly surprised that he’d let them go on for so long. “ _How long until we get Blue to his new location? We need that sniper cover so we can infiltrate and capture their base. And Pidge, how’s the hack going?_ ”

“ _We’re about halfway to the place Pidge found_ ,” Red answered quickly, crouching low to the wall of the building they were passing. Lance followed suit, creeping along behind. The medal sides of the buildings around them were reflecting distorted images, back at them, and it was probably one of the biggest reasons Lance hated this map. He’d shot the _wall_ in one of their first team matches, rather than the enemy, and Pidge _still_ brought up that fail.

“ _Oh, I’ve had control of their cameras for ages,_ ” their hacker announced, and Lance wasn’t even surprised. She was a straight-up _genius_ , and man, was he glad to have her on his team. “ _I’ve got a C-3 drone patrolling the halls that don’t have cameras, but the feeds I’m getting are glitchy. This is why we should have been more careful with my SC model, instead of letting it get destroyed in our last match. The S series has a lot more stealth than the C series, so the hybrid was a godsend! Ugh. We are_ so _doing that infiltration stage on that battleship when they release it. One of the rewards for clearing it is an ultra rare drone and I’m going to call mine Rover!_ ”

“Pidge, do you realize that we might have to do the raid _dozens_ of times before you get your little drone? _If_ you get it? That’s what _ultra rare_ means, in case you forgot,” Lance remarked, rather impishly. “And since _Legendary Defender_ doesn’t release item information before the raid is released, there’s no way for you to know if _Rover_ will actually be an improvement on your little C-3 or not. That will be _hours_ of work!”

“ _Remember the hell we went through for Yellow? Horrible name, by the way, Hunk. What were you_ thinking _?_ ”

“ _Yellow is a perfect little bomber! Don’t you dare insult her!_ ” Hunk jumped to the immediate defense of his little fighter ship, the one that was somehow big enough to serve as their small transport vessel when they needed to get from their base to somewhere else. “ _It was three days of grinding, and don’t you forget that handheld you got from it! You were gushing about its capabilities for weeks, until you got another upgrade! And Red got—_ ”

“ _Focus_ ,” Kuro chided gently, interrupting Hunk before he could really get on a roll. “ _Blue, hurry up and get in position. We need your cover. And Red, once you make sure it’s clear, get in position. It’s marked on your map._ ”

Red just made a soft noise of assent, and Lance called, “Copy that, Cap!”

“ _It’s the top of this tower,_ ” he shot at Lance, “ _you’re gonna be able to make it yourself, right,_ my lady _?_ ”

“Oh, my knight!” Lance laughed, “How can I ever repay you?”

“ _Just get up the damn tower, Blue._ ”

“Alas, we must part here, my knight!” Lance gasped dramatically, listening to his friend groan. “ _Adiós_ , _mi corazón_! _Mwah!_ ” he made an exaggerated kissing noise, sniggering as Red huffed and his character slipped out of sight. Lance slipped into the building, inching up the stairs as quickly and quietly as he could.

He reached the top of the tower in one piece, and this time was very careful to look around the entire area with caution. It didn’t look like another ambush, so he thought he should be safe. Lance deployed a few sensors around the area so that he’d be alerted if the enemy team tried to sneak up on him, and then he checked the map. The objective was to the east, and when he looked in that direction, a smirk crawled across his face.

“Damn, Pidge, you know how to pick a spot,” he acknowledged, settling down with his SR-16 and checking his range of motion. “How did you find this one?”

“ _Drones_ ,” the hacker responded shortly. “ _It’s got good visibility and has a tactical advantage for our goals...second only to the spot you failed to secure_.”

“Well, I like this one better,” Lance defended, looking at his screen. “That’s what counts, right?”

“ _What counts is that you make the shots,_ ” Kuro’s voice smoothly intervened before Pidge could retort again, and he heard her huff in defeat. Score one for Lance. “ _I take it that you’re in position now, Blue?_ ”

“Copy that,” he grinned to himself, scanning the ground. Lance pressed the _ENTER_ key and typed a quick _/locate_ into his chat box, and the command brought up little diamond indicators where the rest of his teammates were. “Got my sights on you guys. Cover is ready when you need it.”

“ _Watch out for the enemy sniper_ ,” Kuro warned. “ _Take him out as quick as you can, Blue._ ”

“On it!” Lance called back—and he was. He scanned the rooftops and kept an eye on his teammates.

_CodeRedXIII has killed Gam3r_gurl._

The notification appeared in the center of the screen, fading as it slid upwards, and Lance had to fight a combination of pride and jealousy. On one hand, that meant Red was kicking ass, as usual, which was great for the team, but on the other it meant that he was already one kill ahead of Lance this match. _That_ wasn’t as cool, because Red was already ahead of him on all of the _Legendary_ leaderboards, except for the sniper specific one, and he was very competitive by nature.

Lance _had_ to catch up.

“ _Keep it up, Red!_ ” Hunk’s voice congratulated. Lance was willing to bet that their engineer was mostly happy that it was one less person he’d have to deal with in the immediate future. Respawns took 45 seconds in _Legendary Defender_ , after all. And Hunk was already freaking out about the fact that their opponents had taken seventh overall in Nationals last season.

Big deal.

No, really, it was a _huge_ deal. Their sniper was _one of the best_. Lance had looked up to him and followed some of his tips when he’d been leveling, and he’d kind of shoved the thought aside when the match had started, but now...now he started to panic a little. There was every chance that the enemy sniper would find him and take him out first, and then he’d be down a kill _and_ a death to Red and that would be hard to come back from.

“ _Blue, have you spotted anything?_ ” Kuro’s voice demanded, pulling Lance out of his thoughts. He scrambled to scan the area again, just in case he’d missed something.

“I still got nothin’,” he responded as casually as he could, working on steadying his breathing.

 _C’mon, Lance, panicking won’t help anyone_.

“ _We’re on the move,_ ” the team leader warned, and he watched as they dashed into the open, dashing across a street. Lance slipped into the view from his scope, training his eyes on the areas around them, searching for any sign of movement. The game was pretty great about having light glint off the metal of armor and weapons, and that was a huge help when he was searching for targets. “ _Keep an eye out and cover us, Blue!_ ”

“On it,” he murmured back, eyes scanning all the likely hiding places.

“ _Tyrannical has respawned,_ ” Pidge’s voice noted, and Lance glanced at the sidebar. The character that had ambushed him had, indeed, respawned. He was another top Free Agent in the game, ahead of Lance and Red both in the rankings. “ _In three, two, one—MemeLord69 has respawned._ ”

Part of Lance wondered how it had only been 45 seconds since he’d had his first kill of the match, but he shrugged it off. Time always seemed to move slower when he focused enough on the game. So he returned his full attention to guarding his team as they ducked through alleyways and worked towards the enemy base.

The goal was to get in, get the information off of their opponents’ system, and get back to their spawn point, which was randomized each match. And the team got _Prestige Points_ for each kill that one of the members made, which was an added bonus that Lance and Red _always_ wanted to partake in. The team would get bonuses for diplomacy in certain story quests, and individual players would get points for each of their kills and a portion of the kills made by their teammates.

Red used his stealth and his plentiful array of daggers to earn his kills and his points, while Lance used his trusty sniper rifle and high vantage points. He had to move after a few shots, though, because people would start noticing which direction he was shooting from and that ended about as well as the ambush earlier could have.

And while Lance kept a tally in his mind of kills just to compete, even silently, with Red, the _Prestige Points,_ or PP, that they earned were also used for another purpose. Once a player had accumulated enough, they could upgrade their original weapon, called a _bayard_ , to a better weapon for their class. Until then, though, they had to rely on store bought or crafted weapons and upgrades. And while, in most games, the primary weapon turned out to be pretty useless later on, the opposite was true for serious players of _Legendary Defender_.

If Lance worked hard enough, his bayard could become the strongest weapon available to him.

Right now, Lance’s bayard was only an energy rifle. It didn’t yet have sniping capabilities, and he needed thirty-seven more points before he could get the first upgrade, which was the scope. That first upgrade came at a total of 1500 PP, and it had taken him three months and some all nighters to even get _close_ to having enough points for it.

He was so close he could almost taste it. All he had to do was keep it up—keep getting kills and earning points, and he’d be set. Pidge had estimated it would take them four matches to get all the points he needed for his first upgrade, but his goal was to get it in three. So he leaned forward and focused all his attention on watching out for his teammates as their designated eye in the sky, scanning for any signs of danger.

And just then, through an upper window of one of the ridiculous metal buildings on this weird planet, Lance saw it. A glimmer.

“Above, to the right! Get against the wall!” Lance called his warning, lining up his shot as carefully as he could. The enemy leaned out of cover again, lifting his rifle to his shoulder and preparing to fire down—and took Lance’s shot straight to the head. Through his scope, Lance spotted the _DECEASED_ dialogue box and whooped. Across the screen, just as it had moments earlier for Red, his triumph was displayed.

 _blu_sniper has killed Machino_Man_.

“Clear,” his tone was a bit smug. He had officially caught back up with Red and was back in the game, with a shot on the enemy’s hacker, of all people. Why was he even trying to deter them, anyway? Or maybe he was working on a bonus hack? Lance didn’t really care, as long as he wasn’t completely behind Red.

“ _Keep it up, Blue,_ ” Kuro said, in his typical leader voice, but Lance fancied that he'd heard a smidgen of pride in his tone. Hunk had at least cheered for him, like the best bro he was, so Lance would let Pidge and Red get by without congratulating him. This time.

“ _Oh, fuck,_ ” Red cursed suddenly. Lance prepared a witty quip about how he'd need to work harder to keep up, then noticed that Red’s character icon was flashing. “ _I'm gonna have to lay low for a while; I don't know where he is but I got hit by their sniper._ ”

“ _Use a medkit...level 4, I think, for the damage you took. Was it a poisoned shot?_ ” Hunk spoke quickly. “ _Yeah, it looks like a DoT. You're still taking some damage. Shit. You got an antidote, buddy?_ ”

“ _Yeah, yeah I got it. I need a minute. Blue, can you cover me? Since you can't find their sniper, apparently._ ”

“Hey! You do realize how intense he is, don't you?” Lance groused, trying to decide the best way to split his focus between covering for Red and covering for the others. “In their match against GE last week, he had the most kills in the game, even though they lost! Do you realize how insane that is?”

“ _Focus,_ ” Kuro reminded, and Lance stopped himself from continuing.

Silence fell over the headset, and he tried to keep an eye out for the opposition. The locators he had for his teammates showed that the advance team had paused. A little icon popped up next to Pidge's name, and Lance bit back the question he'd been preparing to ask. They'd stopped for a bonus hack, probably one that would give her a nifty new drone upgrade.

Movement caught his eye again, but it was gone by the time he'd shifted his view. Even though it was only a game, his heart pounded in his chest.

“Spotted movement at,” he checked the map really quickly to find the building, “A-4. Lost him before I could tell who it was. Closest to you, Red.”

“ _Got it,_ ” the rogue acknowledged, and Lance cast a quick glance at his character icon. His health wasn't in critical anymore, but it did take a while for the health packs to do their thing.

A triumphant sound came from Pidge, and she declared, “ _Got it! When we win this match, I'll get an upgrade to the most used drone in the match! Clearer cameras, here I come!_ ”

“ _Let's move,_ ” Kuro prompted, and Lance watched as the locators for Pidge and Hunk followed his.

Not even a second later, Red cursed again.

“ _Red?! What is it, bud?!_ ” Hunk asked, but he didn't get an answer.

The sound of some furious keyboard maneuvers came through their voice chat, and then the notice appeared across the screen.

_CodeRedXIII has killed MemeLord69._

His health flashed low, and he cursed again for good measure. Lance understood the feeling. He needed to use another slow as hell medkit, but he had to leave his cover how because the enemy would know where he was. He'd be an easy kill.

As much as Lance hated the fact that Red was one kill up _again_ , it didn't feel right for him to die.

“Someone please tell me why they're all after the Free Agents this match,” he groaned instead. “First they ambushed me and now they're stalking Red!”

Even as he groused, Red slipped into the street, and Lance zeroed his attention in on protecting him.

He heard Pidge curse, but didn't pull his eyes from the street Red was on until the notifications crawled across his screen and he flinched in sympathy.

_Gam3r_gurl has killed Pidgery._

_LittleLionDad has killed Gam3r_gurl._

“ _Shit, she came outta nowhere,_ ” she grumbled. “ _So much for them being after the Free Agents this match,_ ” oh, that was definitely a jibe at him, and Lance found enough remorse to feel at least a tiny bit guilty. But hey, Kuro had gotten revenge for her, so they were still up by like, four kills. “ _And she's the mercenary subclass, so she gets a money boost for each kill!_ ”

As she continued ranting about how she didn’t want to provide for the other team by _dying_ , Hunk and Kuro slipped out to find cover elsewhere. Their best bet was to wait for her to respawn and then meet up again while Lance and Red tried to keep the enemy on their toes.

Lance tried to tune her griping out and focus on Red.

And, finally, he saw it—a shift, there!

He moved as quickly as he could without drawing too much attention to himself and, in moments, had a figure in his crosshairs. The sight made him jump in surprise because how could _he_ have _that character_ in his scope? But he stilled his nervous fingers before he made a premature shot and scanned the area.

“Red, get in cover. Dodge to your left!”

For once, the other Free Agent didn't argue and followed Lance's warning. The metal street cracked where he'd been moments before from the force of the bullet’s impact, and Lance took a breath. His aim was good, and he finally released his shot.

_blu_sniper has killed Snipa63._

“I did it!” he squeaked, excited. “ _Dios mío_ , I killed the sniper I’ve _idolized_ since before I started playing the game!”

“ _That’s two kills from that spot, though,_ ” Pidge observed. “ _You might think about moving. I’ve marked another spot on your map that looks promising. If you can make it there before they track you down, anyway._ ”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m already moving,” Lance tossed back. It was common sense to move after a few shots in one place, after all.

He stowed his gear back in his inventory, keeping his new energy pistol in hand as he moved to creep back down the stairs. He checked the map and mentally marked the spot he should be heading to as he ducked out of the building and dashed across the street, slipping between two tall, deceptively reflective buildings. He tried to blend in as well as he could.

Even before he exited the alleyway, he was tossed to the ground. He rolled, taking a bit of impact damage, and turned as quickly as he could to see _Tyrannical_ in his face. And Lance had never healed up from their first scuffle, so he was already at a disadvantage.

“ _Mierda_ ,” Lance cursed, “not good, not good, not good!”

He got a shot off, but it only grazed the other Free Agent. And then he was down, a wicked alien blade sticking up from his chest and the notice _YOU HAVE DIED_ popping up above his character. Lance groaned aloud as the legend rose to the center of the screen.

 _Tyrannical has killed blu_sniper_.

He heaved a sigh, reaching for his water bottle as the respawn timer kicked in.

“ _Well, I figured it was only a matter of time,_ ” Pidge’s tone was dry, and Lance only grunted again. “ _No big deal, we’re still up on them, and you’ve been doing pretty good so far. We’ve got twenty-two minutes and thirteen seconds left. If I’ve calculated everything correctly, we could potentially get in and out in just ten. We need to regroup, though_.”

“Looks like I’ll be respawning on the north end of the map,” Lance announced.

“ _That’s where I’m at, since my respawn_ ,” Pidge noted, and he heard her typing a few things. “ _Looks like the building I’m hiding in will be a good vantage point for you, Blue. It’s the second tallest building on the map, but the drawback is that there are no parapets to use for cover. Once you’re up there, you’d be an easy target for Snipa63, or anyone who had a rifle with the range to get you._ ”

“Wouldn’t be the worst place I’ve sniped from,” Lance managed, rolling his shoulders. Fifteen seconds until respawn. “Remember when I sniped from _the ground_ on that one map? I was literally on the beach, half-buried in sand! I don’t understand how they didn’t find me sooner.”

“ _If you’re going to do it, be careful, Blue_ ,” Kuro cautioned.

“ _Yeah, man. Remember to prep the energy shield that I built into your armor. If you spot someone before they shoot you, you can at least deflect some of it and either take them out or get off the roof,_ ” Hunk pointed out. “ _When we used to watch Snipa’s matches, before we were playing ranked ourselves, remember when he did that? Now it’s your chance to use his moves against him!_ ”

“I get it, Hunk,” Lance laughed. The thought was actually kind of thrilling. If he could actually use some of the things he’d learned from _Snipa63_ against the him, or his team, he’d feel pretty damn good about himself, that was for sure.

“ _Seriously, man,_ ” Hunk insisted. “ _Use that deflect-and-kill that he used in season two and you’ll own this match. Lucky for you, the energy shields built into our armor is strong. It can probably take three shots from his super sniper rifle before it needs a recharge—_ ”

“Really, Hunk? ‘ _Super sniper rifle_ ’? It’s a TSR-52! It’s _the_ sniper rifle right now, bro! Mine’s a kid’s toy next to his!”

“ _And, like I said, your shield can still probably take three shots from it. We had to grind for ages to get the materials we needed to make top tier energy shields, you know. You’d better actually use it sometime or I swear, when I die, I will haunt you for the rest of forever_.”

“I get it, I get it!” Lance insisted, trying to get Hunk off of his tangent. If they didn’t head him off quickly, the rambler could go on for ages. “I’ll prep it as soon as I respawn, buddy, just give me a minute to breathe!”

Five seconds. Hunk was mumbling to himself now, but not actually giving Lance any more advice, which was just fine with him. His character started to materialize and, with an exaggerated flash, he was back in the game. The first thing he did was reactivate his team locators, then search for the building Pidge was in. She’d also marked it on the team map.

“Yo, Pidgerino, I’m on my way over.”

Pidge huffed at the name, but otherwise didn’t correct him. That probably meant she was more focused on the game now, anyway, which was a good thing. A concentrating Pidge usually spelled certain victory, and even though two team deaths and having Red lay low for a while wasn’t exactly the best case scenario, he knew the brainiac could handle it.

Before he left his spawn point, Lance remembered to pause and prep his shield, like Hunk had previously insisted. And then, out of curiosity, he popped open the objectives menu to see how much progress they’d made before their minor setbacks. When he did, he let out a low whistle before exiting. They’d made a good bit of progress, and Pidge had accomplished more hacking objectives than he’d given her credit for.

Grinning, Lance reopened his map to double check his location—he was about three buildings away from where he needed to be, and he prepped his energy pistol again, just in case. And then he slipped out of cover, keeping his senses on alert and using as much of his stealth as he could.

He _really_ hated the reflective buildings on this map.

“ _Kuro, Hunk, let’s rendezvous at the place I’ve circled on the map,_ ” Pidge’s voice cut across his thoughts just as he had bolted into the street, moving as quickly and silently as he could.

“ _Pidge...that’s—_ ” Hunk began.

“— _their base? Yeah, I know. We’ll meet there in forty-five seconds. Blue, can you be in position by then_?”

Of _course_ Pidge would go right for the base. But she was a genius, and she probably had a plan that Lance couldn’t even begin to comprehend. That was just the way she operated, after all, and as an old friend, it was something he was still struggling to get used to.

“Should be there,” he answered as he rounded a corner and spied his destination in front of him. “Got the building right in front of me, so as long as nothing detains me on the way to the top, I’ll be golden, Pidgeon.”

“ _Oh, shut up,_ ” she nearly growled at him. Lance smirked to himself. “ _Red, how are you holding up? Looks like your vitals are at about eighty percent now. Can you meet us at the base, too?_ ”

“ _You ever gonna tell us the plan_?” Red spoke for the first time in a good couple of minutes. “ _Or are we going in blind? I’d like to remind you that going in without everyone knowing the plan didn’t work very well last time. Or, y’know,_ at all.”

Lance couldn’t help but snicker at the flat tone Red used. It was a valid point, though, and he kind of wondered if Pidge would tell them. If her silence was anything to go by, it didn’t seem like the information was immediately forthcoming. There was a soft sigh, and it took Lance a second to recognize it, but then a voice started speaking.

“ _Pidge…_ ”

At Kuro’s prompting, the genius groaned. And then she relented, “ _I want Kuro and Red to come in from opposite ends, like a pincer. Hunk and I will slip in from the back after at least two of their team are down and make our way for the objective. Blue will be covering from above. Well, until someone notices where he is and takes him out because that’s a really obvious place, but it’s got one of the best vantage points for this plan._ ”

“Don’t sell me short,” Lance grumbled a little, slipping into the building in question. Pidge’s character was crouched in a corner, the holoscreen on his arm raised as he tapped a few codes in. She must have emoted, because then the character waved at him. Lance hit _ENTER_ and typed _/rude_ into the bar to make a rude hand gesture at her. He heard her snort. “Ladylike, my dear Pidgeot.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” she retorted simply. “ _And get upstairs. Hunk, I’m heading your way_.”

Lance bit back his retort as she slipped out into the street. Instead, he turned his attention to the stairs and started to climb up. Instead of arguing with her, he’d just show her that he was the best damn sniper they could ask for. It’d be great. He’d get two shots off, maybe three, and then scram before his no cover situation was the death of him.

He made sure the locators for his teammates were still displaying with a quick camera rotation, and when it snapped back to first-person he continued to the roof. He heard a huff of annoyance but didn’t even have time to try to identify it before he found out.

_Gam3r_gurl has killed CodeRedXIII._

“ _Well, I guess that means we have to wait on Red before we put the plan in motion,_ ” Kuro remarked casually. “ _It’s fine, we’ve got plenty of time._ ”

“ _Right when I’d almost finish healing, dammit,_ ” Red grumbled. Lance felt at least some sympathy for his friend, but it was slightly overshadowed by the realization that they were tied once again in their kill-death ratio. “ _Respawning in the east._ ”

“ _That puts you on the other side of the base anyway...that’s good. Blue can still cover you if you approach the base from that direction. Kuro, can you make it to the west side of their base?_ ” Pidge was running calculations as she moved, just like usual. “ _If Hunk stays where he is, I’ll be there in just a few seconds, so you can start moving, Kuro. Coming in from the west will make it harder for Blue to cover you, so you’ll have to be more careful. Red, just head towards the base when you respawn._ ”

“ _Okay, Pidge, I get that you’re, y’know, the strategist and stuff, but we have a problem. We are squishy, man. I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure about, y’know,_ survival _. If we’re going in on our own. Even if we’re waiting until they’ve got a few men down._ ” Typical Hunk, Lance noted silently as his friend took a breath. Ever the optimist. “ _I mean, we have good armor and equipment but these guys have been ranked since before we even owned the game, Pidge._ ”

“ _Yes, Hunk, I know_ ,” Pidge sounded exasperated already, but Hunk had barely begun.

“ _I mean, I know that doesn’t necessarily make us the losers here but we’re definitely the underdogs. These guys placed seventh in the last Nationals._ Seventh _. We haven’t even been ranked long enough to have tried for a Nationals tournament yet. And all of their members are so much higher on the_ Legendary _boards than we are. Well, their hacker is behind you, of course, Pidge, but Tyrannical’s at the top of the Free Agent board, and Snipa’s up there, too._ ”

“ _Yeah, we know_ ,” she groaned.

 _“I don’t think you get it though!_ ” Hunk sounded almost hysterical. “ _Do you realize how screwed we should be? They’ve got experience and ranks and gear over on us, Pidge!_ ”

“ _Calm down, Hunk_ ,” Kuro’s voice was sharper than usual. “ _Experience and ranks and gear don’t mean anything. Remember that patience yields focus. We can_ do _this._ ”

“ _But—_ ”

“No buts, Hunk, my man!” Lance couldn’t help but interject. As he inched onto the rooftop, looking around for any signs of the enemy or of an ambush before slinking forward to start setting up shop. “The captain says we can do it, so we can do it! ‘Sides, you got me looking out for you!”

“ _No wonder he’s worried_.”

“Shut it, Pidgey-pie, I didn’t ask you,” he retorted. He finished setting up his rifle and took a careful, slow scan of the area he’d be watching. Everything looked good so far, so he continued trying to soothe his anxious friend. “Seriously, though, Hunk. Just chill. Follow the plan and you’ll be in and out in no time at all. I’ll cover you from above and shit, and Red and Kuro will try to distract the ones you’re worried about. You’ll probably just need to deal with Machino_Man and maybe MemeLord69. By the way...is MemeLord still multiclassing like he tried last season, or did he finally settle on a class? Did anyone actually check that? Because he’s been out trying to kill us, so despite being an engineer, he might have points in one of the combat classes.”

“ _Last check was multiclassing. Tech Specialist engineer as his primary, Combat Specialist fighter as his second class. He’s probably still trying to earn the points for his talent tree in his second class, though,_ ” Pidge relayed, almost boredly. Trust her. “ _So yeah, there’s a possibility we’ll run into him in the base_.”

“ _Are you guys done talking? I’m on my way,_ ” Red’s voice cut through. Somehow, Lance had missed the little pulsing avatar outline in the sidebar that would indicate a character’s respawn, so he had to quickly search for Red’s moving indicator to make sure he’d be ready to cover for him. Kuro would be mostly on his own, but Lance kept one eye out for him anyway.

“ _Let’s move,_ ” the hacker’s tone was darker than before, and it sent a chill up Lance’s spine. Pidge had a way of creeping him out with just the way she said things, and she sounded far too calculating for his taste. Hunk whined and then started to babble, but he followed Pidge as she crept closer to the base, if their locators were anything to go by. Red and Kuro were moving quickly in from either side, and his heartbeat started to race.

 _This is it_ , he thought, excitement building. This move could make or break the match, depending on the success of the plan.

The next several moments seemed to pass by even more slowly than usual, and Lance blamed it on the adrenaline racing through his veins. He could hear his pulse in his ears, and every action he made was careful and deliberate. When Red dashed into his view, all of his senses were focused on covering his teammate’s back, and when the rogue slipped into another building, he looked ahead to make sure his path was clear.

Red slipped back into the open, and then dodged something that Lance couldn’t see.

“ _Just saw Gam3r_gurl, but she slipped away before I could fire back at her_ ,” his voice broke across the headset. That explained his quick movement, then. Lance didn’t have sight on her, so she must have been inside a building.

“I’ll keep an eye out for her, Red,” Lance assured him. “Follow the plan and I’ll do my best to find her.”

“ _Wow, Blue gave sound advice for once?_ ” Pidge feigned shock—or maybe she was actually surprised. Regardless, Lance gave a whine of protest, though he didn’t say anything aloud just then. He’d caught a hint of movement on the screen that _wasn’t_ Red, or any of his other teammates for that matter. “ _Don’t make that sound at me. You know your advice sucks_.”

“ _Pidge_ ,” the scolding tone came from Kuro, of course. He was the only one that could reign Pidge in when she was being particularly vicious. “ _Focus on the plan_.”

“ _Aye, aye, captain_ ,” she drawled slowly, almost reluctantly. “ _Red, keep moving forward like Blue said. I know I mentioned that we’d move in when two of the enemy were already down, but you’ve had a sighting on one of them and Snipa63 will be watching from above, so I think we’ll go in as soon as one of their people is down. Since Red and Kuro will be nearby for support, and Hunk can watch my back while I hack, we should be good. And, until he gets found, Blue will cover us when we’re in the streets._ ”

“ _Got it_ ,” Red was a man of few words, as usual.

“ _Copy that_ ,” Kuro answered with equal brevity.

Lance decided that his vocal input wasn’t necessary, just this once, and watched as Red ducked back into the street yet again. He was entering the red zone, the area of the map closest to the enemy base, and statistics showed that most infiltrating teams had logged more deaths in the red zone than any other part of the map. At least while Red was in the open, it was Lance’s job to make sure he wasn’t one of those statistics.

So, when he spotted movement again, he zeroed in on the location as quickly as he could. And when he finally found her, _Gam3r_gurl_ was launching herself from a window in a move she must have learned from her teammate _Tyrannical_ , intending to take Red to the ground.

“ _¡Mierda!_ Red, watch out!” Lance spat out, training his crosshairs. He made his prediction and pulled the trigger almost as he finished speaking, and he saw Red drop into a dive just as his assailant dropped to the ground where he’d been standing. An exaggerated spray of red covered the area, and Red, even as he rolled out of the way. He came to his feet in a crouch against a wall as the dialogue box popped up over her head and the legend scrolled across the screen.

 _blu_sniper has killed Gam3r_gurl_.

“ _You just shot her in midair, Blue!_ ” Red’s tone was all surprise, and if Lance had been any less shocked, he would have quipped back immediately. As it was, he couldn’t leave the silence hanging, even as the rest of their teammates let out exclamations of surprise.

“Y-Yeah, of course I did! I’m the best sniper in this game, man, didn’t you know that?”

His bravado was shaky. Lance hadn’t realized that he was completely breathless from the shot until that precise moment, so he cleared his throat and hunkered lower on his defenseless roof. He itched to take his hand off the keyboard to reach for his water but he feared what would happen if he did.

Pidge groaned at Lance’s senseless gloating, but urged Hunk to start moving since one of their people was down. He protested, but Lance watched his locator icon follow her lead, diving straight for the base. Lance couldn’t see them from where he was, but it was apparent that _Snipa63_ also didn’t spot them, because a few seconds later the hacker let out a victorious little noise.

“ _We’re in_ ,” she murmured.

“I always wanted to say that,” the sniper found himself whining. “It sounds so cool, like we’re in some sort of spy movie. All that action, all those fight scenes...man, I’ve dreamed about doing that for years. When do _I_ get to be that person, huh?”

“ _When you finally learn how to use your basic melee stats, maybe_ ,” Hunk suggested, a hint of a joke in his voice. “ _I mean, for a Free Agent, it’s kinda funny how bad you are at melee. You’re a sniper, I get it, but most snipers can defend themselves better than you can on the ground. You were even bad before you could pick your class specialization. Maybe you should take some pointers from Red, bro._ ”

“Pointers? From _Red_? Ha! I’d dance circles around him!” it was a blatant lie, and everyone knew it. He couldn’t stop himself, though. Even though he knew that Red was definitely a better melee fighter, he couldn’t help but pretend. It was just in Lance’s nature to be a little shit, especially with his rival—one of his favorite people he had never met and unfortunately probably would never meet. So he had to forge onward blindly with, “Maybe he should take some lessons from me instead?”

The engineer scoffed, but didn’t remark. Pidge started guffawing, unsuccessfully trying to smother the sound, most likely without even removing her hands from the keyboard.

“ _We should test that in the Arena sometime, Blue,_ ” the other Free Agent snorted, amused.

“ _Enough, enough_ ,” Kuro’s voice cut in, and Lance bit back the retort on his tongue as the captain added, “ _Focus, guys._ ”

“ _Keep your eyes open, guys. Pidge and I made it to the target without resistance so we may need backup soon. I don’t trust it. It’s way too quiet, and when it’s this easy there’s no way it’s not some kind of trap, man._ ”

“C’mon, Hunk! You got this,” Lance murmured, watching as Red neared the base. He’d be inside to back the others up really soon, so they didn’t really need to worry too much. Lance couldn’t see exactly where Kuro was, but his locator placed him fairly close on the other side.

Lance listened to the sounds of Pidge’s keyboard, her furious typing somehow audible as she worked the game’s complex hacking system to its limits. She was an ace. They system challenged some people, but Pidge was constantly challenging developers to make things more difficult.

Really, she’d sent four emails asking for an advanced hacking system for pro matches.

And then Kuro hissed. He rarely cursed, but that little hiss was as close as he ever got. And then Lance noticed that he’d taken a little hit to his health. But the character icon for _MemeLord69_ on the enemy’s side of his screen was flashing red, so Kuro had the upper hand. As Lance would expect from their cyborg combat specialist.

But even Kuro wasn’t able to bounce back from everything, as the next notification on the screen clearly proved.

 _Snipa63 has killed LittleLionDad_.

“ _Well...hope you’re in cover, Red,_ ” Pidge murmured, a few more tapping noises coming from her end. “ _We might need your help getting out._ ”

“ _Yeah man, they’ve still got Tyrannical out there somewhere and we didn’t finish off MemeLord yet and I’m not sure I’m gonna be much help,_ ” Hunk started, and then his weird, terrified stutter-scream started. “ _Hatatatatata! Nope, nope, no—I told you it was an ambush!_ ”

 _Machino_Man has killed theincredibleHUNK_.

“ _Aw, shit, Hunk_ ,” the hacker cursed, and after a split second of furious typing, she continued, “ _you’re so lucky I only had like thirty keystrokes left and—shit, that’s it! HA! Right in the throat, you fucker!_ ”

Her victorious whoop was accompanied by a new message.

 _Pidgery has killed Machino_Man_.

“Shit, you _can_ actually do more than hacks,” Lance teased, his tone warm as he feigned incredulity. “ _¡Sinverguenza, como creces tan ràpida!_ ”

He gave her hell, even though he was fully aware of Pidge’s points in combat. She’d multiclassed into Free Agent just for the ability to defend herself on such occasions, and it looked like it had come in handy. He would have paid to see exactly how she’d taken out the enemy techie, but her cheer about being right in the throat gave him an idea. She had like, laser knuckles with her current bayard.

Her mildly annoyed, “ _Fuck you, Blue_ ,” only made him laugh.

The comms fell silent as the respawn timers ticked, and Lance inhaled slowly. Pidge greeted Red when they ran into each other, and the sniper carefully watched as their location indicators moved slowly toward the extraction point. Lance tuned out their little warnings to each other as they moved, instead scanning for the remaining enemies. _Tyrannical, Snipa63,_ and _MemeLord69_ were still out there, somewhere. The teams might be even, but theirs was lacking one of their best fighters and the enemy had only some of their strongest left. Well, _Gam3r_gurl_ was probably better than _MemeLord69_ , strictly speaking of melee, but the latter was a pretty crafty bastard.

Lance needed to be extra careful.

Which is probably why he heard the noise that made him twitch his mouse to the left and right click, rolling his character to the side just as a knife sparked against the metal rooftop beside him.

“ _¡Que pinga!_ ” he cursed, springing to his feet as _Tyrannical_ leapt at him. “ _¡Sal de mi verga!_ ”

Lance continued with a string of steady curses as he was forced into hand-to-hand combat with one of the best assassins in the game. Maybe he _should_ take some pointers from Red for situations like this, especially if they kept climbing in the ranks.

And then Lance remembered his shield. A second later, and he would have been waiting on his respawn timer, but when _Tyrannical’s_ knife was skating across the energy shield instead of through his character’s torso, he sucked in a single relieved breath. He pressed on with his attack, striking out with his free hand to punch the enemy in the stomach. He staggered, and then suddenly he was gone.

 _blu_sniper has killed Tyrannical_.

“ _Whoa, you’re kidding!_ ” Hunk’s voice came through. “ _The way you were cursing, I thought he’d ambushed you again and that you were a goner for sure, man!_ ”

“He had,” stunned, Lance scrambled forward and realized what he’d done. “I thought I was done for, too, but I…” he trailed off, looking over the ledge.

He had knocked the enemy _off of the roof_. The fall damage had been enough to take him out, and Lance let out a breathless chuckle and an incredulous, “ _Dios mío_ ,” before he realized that he was now incredibly vulnerable and his position was compromised. Lance turned to snatch up his rifle, dropping it into his inventory in a rush as he turned to bolt towards the door to the roof.

A second later, he found himself tumbling, and he cursed again.

_Snipa63 has killed blu_sniper._

“ _Wait, okay, so if Tyrannical had ambushed you again, how did you get out?_ ” the engineer sounded a little confused. Lance tried not to be hurt by what was insinuated. “ _I mean, we already talked about how your melee skill sucks, so it shouldn’t have been possible!_ ”

“That hurts, bro,” Lance ground out, watching his respawn timer tick down as he finally reached for his water again. “I think I did pretty damn good, all things considered.”

“ _How did you_ kill _him, though?_ ”

Damn, Hunk was curious. And when Hunk wanted answers, he wouldn’t stop asking until he got them. With a sigh, Lance admitted, “I used the shield to keep him from stabbing me and then I punched him off the roof.”

Pidge snorted, and there was even a warm chuckle from both Red and Kuro. Hunk was silent, and then laughed. It was one of his hearty laughs, deep and infectious. Lance couldn’t help but snicker at his own expense before weakly protesting that he’d been _badass_ , not a laughingstock. But then Hunk and Kuro had respawned, and Lance sullenly watched them move towards Red and Pidge to help with capturing the objective.

Lance had thirty more seconds.

“ _Fuck, Red, watch out!_ ” Pidge’s voice called, and Red cursed a little. His icon on Lance’s screen flashed, showing that he’d taken some damage, and then a triumphant _ha!_ sounded and Lance watched the legend scroll across the screen.

 _CodeRedXIII has killed MemeLord69_.

“ _Gam3r_gurl is out here again, so keep an eye out. And it won’t be much longer before Machino_Man is back. Let’s try to capture this as quickly as we can,_ ” Pidge’s voice was tight, and Lance figured it was because they were approaching her ten minute estimate. She had wanted to be entirely right about how long victory would take them. She was a little particular that way, but that’s part of what made her the best strategist for their team.

“Ten seconds,” Lance announced, watching his timer. He tapped his foot impatiently, watching as Hunk managed to meet up with Pidge and Red. More protection for the info they were supposed to extract was always great, and he was itching to join in.

“ _Picked up something on my sensors_ ,” Kuro’s voice cut in. One of the perks of being a cyborg was that he had a few built-in sensors. “ _I’m going to check it out. Keep moving_.”

“ _Not like we were gonna stop_ ,” Pidge sassed back. Red snorted, and Lance was finally back in control of his character...all the way across the map from where he needed to be. He groaned and slipped out of his building, ducking and dodging his way through the streets in the direction he needed to go. “ _My only plan is to get to the extraction point with this info so we can claim our victory over the former seventh place team_.”

The hint of unrestrained glee in her voice made the team sniper smirk.

And then, without warning, a notice popped up, and Hunk whooped.

_LittleLionDad has killed Snipa63._

“ _Alright, I’m on my way to meet you guys. They don’t have their sniper coverage right now, so use that to your advantage_ ,” ever the team leader, Kuro acted as if he hadn’t done anything major. But he’d managed not only to sneak up on one of the leading snipers in the game, but he also took him out in a critical moment. Lance had to admit, even to himself, that he was kind of jealous. He did decide to honor the captain’s advice, though, and he darted a little more recklessly through the stupid mirror-streets, making his way towards the clump of locators that marked his team.

He busted out laughing at the next thing he saw.

 _LittleLionDad has killed Machino_Man_.

“Jeez, Kuro, think you can leave some for us?” he tried to joke, but it was nice to have fewer enemies to worry about. Their victory was pretty much guaranteed now, and Lance couldn’t have been happier. “I can take ‘em too, y’know.”

“ _Sure you can_ ,” teased Red’s voice, back from his long bout of silence.

“Oh, my knight, a man of few words,” the dramatic tone Lance used earned a derisive snort from Pidge. For a girl, she sure did like to make unladylike sounds. A lot.

“ _Get a room_ ,” she slipped in slyly, and Red coughed a little.

“Hear that, Sir Knight? We have Pidgisita’s blessing! Why don’t we leave her to capture the objective and sneak off, hmmm?”

Even though he wasn’t facing his teammate, he couldn’t keep a straight face, and let a chuckle escape. He heard a low groan from Red’s end, but the other Free Agent said nothing. Lance was kind of disappointed that he couldn’t get a rise out of him this time.

He opened his mouth to begin again when—

 _LittleLionDad has killed Gam3r_gurl_.

“ _Holy Crow, Kuro_ ,” the little genius sounded suitably impressed. “ _Did you just happen to run into all of them at once_?”

“ _They ambushed me,_ ” he responded, sounding a little tired. “ _They were waiting on the base level when I came down from killing the sniper. Anyway, I’m on my way to you guys. Let’s make the goal and win this thing!_ ”

Lance and Hunk and Pidge all whooped, almost obnoxiously, at the prospect of victory, and Red made a noise of assent. And, before too many moments had passed, Lance was slipping into the group beside the rogue as their goal came into view. The win was so close he could taste it, and he emoted to thump Red on the back. His character returned the favor, and he heard Red let out another chuckle.

Kuro joined them just a few streets after Lance did, and they all stepped across the glowing goal line together.

_Paladins of Voltron claim Victory!_

“Hell yeah we do!” Lance cheered. “We just beat the team that took seventh in Nationals last year, guys!”

The game loaded out into the screen that showed stats and opened a chat for both teams, and the chat immediately started to fill with the customary _ggwp_. Lance added his with an exclamation point because his excitement could not be contained, and he watched as the label showed _Snipa63 is typing…_

Snipa had already offered his _ggwp_ , so Lance ignored Hunk’s excited babbling in favor of staring at the chat box. He wanted to see what his former idol had to say, after all. Maybe he was gonna talk shit? Lance probably would if he’d been beaten by some up-and-comers that hadn’t even been in Nationals yet. He’d be incredibly bitter about it.

But that wasn’t even close.

_glad we got to play u guys. been watching for u since i saw ur match against team food goo last month. u playin natls this year?_

Oh.

That was totally _not_ what he’d been expecting.

 _We’re going to try, at least._ Kuro had answered the question, and Lance breathed a soft sigh of relief. His shaky fingers relaxed over the keyboard, and he worked on taking a few deep breaths.

_Tyrannical says: yeah man, you gotta try. you guys had some pretty sick moves, i’d like to see how you’d hold up in the tourney_

“Are they...praising us?” Lance asked incredulously, his tone a lot squeakier than he would _ever_ admit to it being. “The seventh place team in last year’s Nationals is _praising us_. I don’t think I’m going to survive.”

“ _Don’t be so dramatic_ ,” Pidge scoffed, the sounds of her loud keyboard reaching him again.

_Pidgery says: thanks man! maybe we’ll get to have a rematch :)_

_Machino_Man says: that’d be rad_

_Snipa63 says: that’d be awesome man. oh, yeah, blu, u got some potential. and ur ballsy af. i never would’ve used that roof, even tho it has a gr8 view_

“I am dead,” Lance announced, clutching his heart dramatically as if the others could see it. “I am officially dead, guys. Here lies Blue, who was praised by his former idol post-game and died a happy man.”

_blu_sniper says: thx man. hope we get another match sometime!_

It was the most he could type. And then the conversation was pretty much over, because _Tyrannical_ started praising Red and Lance decided to look at his stats. They were pretty solid, and he was fairly pleased with everything except for the fact that _Red had one more kill_. And not only that, but he’d also only died the one time, where Lance had died twice. That meant Red was still ahead in the imaginary tally he kept in his head.

Damn.

“ _Well, I gotta go finish some homework_ ,” Pidge said casually, once they’d exited the menu and were all back in their guild hall, the Castle of Lions. “ _Catch you guys same time tomorrow_?”

“Ugh, I gotta do homework too,” Lance groaned as everyone started to say their farewells. “See y’all tomorrow!”

Reluctantly, Lance backed out of the call and slipped his headset off as he logged out of the game. When the _Legendary Defender_ home screen was spinning its logo at him, he really wanted nothing more than to log back in. Anything to avoid the mound of history homework that Professor Coran had assigned that day. Kooky old bastard. At least he was more interesting to listen to than Iverson or Montgomery.

“Man, Lance, I thought I was gonna have to drag you away to do that homework,” Hunk’s voice came from the opposite side of the room. “Never thought you’d log out voluntarily. You never do. Or, well, you don’t usually. Not that I’m complaining, man, because it’s nice to _not_ have to be your mom sometimes. Like, I can’t really do her justice, _mi hijo_ , so why don’t you do me a favor and just keep this trend up? It’s the second night in a row and I’m digging not having to drag you from your computer.”

Lance leaned backwards over his chair, searching for his best friend and roommate. The big guy was already moving around, grabbing some of his own engineering textbooks for their library study session. He let out an exaggerated groan but dragged himself out of his chair, stretching the aches of the three matches they’d played out of his shoulders.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved his friend off with a laugh. “For one, your imitation of my mother is _terrible_ , Hunk. And for another, I may love gaming more than school, but I know when I need to make a grade. Let’s just go meet up with Pidge at the library for this homework night. Did she say we were meeting up with her brother and that Shiro guy for this study session again? Oh, yeah, and didn’t she say she wants to start up a weekly study group? And can we please invite some hot babes if we’re gonna do that, because I could use some eye candy.”

Hunk groaned, but tossed back, “Dude, when Shiro comes, Keith usually comes with, and you can’t keep your eyes off of him as it is. Why would you _need_ girls to ogle at when you wouldn’t even _look_ at them?”

“Hey!” Lance yelped, his ears burning slightly. “I can’t help it that Keith’s fucking _perfect_ , man.”

“Says the guy who can’t talk to him without turning it into an argument or challenge of some sort. When’s the last time you had a decent, civil conversation with Keith, buddy?” Hunk paused, looking over at his lanky friend.

“I dunno, the day we met? Before I found out that he probably hates me.”

“You’re the one who _made_ him hate you, if he does.”

Lance gasped, hand on his heart. “You wound me, Hunk! Are you insinuating that my charm and good looks have repulsed him?!”

“More like your attitude, bro. You’re the pigtails kind of crusher, Lance.”

“ _Pigtails kind—_ what the hell are you talking about?” he groaned, flopping on his bed momentarily. “I love you, but sometimes you don’t make sense, Hunk.”

“When you like someone, you’re mean to them to get their attention,” Hunk replied, speaking slowly as he tossed his books into his bag. “You’re like the little boy that pulls on a girl’s pigtails when he likes her, because that’s the only way he knows how to get her attention. And that’s exactly what you do with Keith.”

“Ha, I bet we could put his mullet in pigtails.”

“ _Not_ the point, Lance.”

He ignored Hunk and asked, “You really think he’ll be with Shiro again tonight?”

Hunk sighed.

“Someone please tell me why one of the biggest idiots in the universe is my best friend?” he asked no one in particular, shaking his head.

“I resent that,” Lance mumbled against his pillow, but he was grinning a little. “I take it that you _do_ think he’ll be coming, then?”

The engineering major shouldered his backpack and looked expectantly back at Lance, who shrugged and rolled off of his bed to cram some stuff into his own bag. As he did so, Hunk asked, “Why don’t you just...I dunno, try to talk to Keith like he’s your friend? Treat him like...oh! Try to treat him more like Red!”

Lance quirked an eyebrow. “Like _Red_? Dude, our friendship is based on the rivalry we’ve got. How is that any better than being a, and I quote you, my friend, _pigtail crusher_?”

As he waited for Hunk’s response, he pulled his bag onto his shoulders and adjusted the straps a little until it was more comfortable.

“You’re just...nicer with Red. Maybe that’s all you need to show Keith to make him stop hating you. _If_ he actually hates you, like you’re so wholly convinced. I don’t think he does, though. I think he’s just confused about how aggressive you are so he fights back with all he’s got. And you started it, so you kind of deserve what you get.”

“Yeah, I deserve it,” he agreed softly, groaning. “I just...can’t think straight when I’m around him.”

“Like I said, try to treat him more like Red. Add a bit more friendliness into it, and maybe he’ll lighten up,” Hunk shrugged. “I mean, you kinda liked Red in the beginning too, and that’s all worked out. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if I need to step down from my position as the Best Friend and hand it over to Red.”

“What?!” Lance squawked, his neck tingling. He had a suspicion it was going to be as red as his ears. “How did you _know_ I was crushing on Red back then?!”

“A hunch,” Hunk shrugged. “That, and the first thing you did was challenge him to a duel.”

“I’m _competitive_ ,” Lance tried. “It’s in my _nature_.”

On his way out the door, past Lance, Hunk ruffled his friend’s hair. “Keep telling yourself that’s all it is if you want, buddy, but you’ve got it _bad_. And I’m not convinced that Keith hates you, so you should lighten up some. Relax and treat him more like he’s a friend than a rival, and maybe you’ll see that he’s not nearly as prickly on the outside as he seems.”

Lance protested and shook Hunk’s hand away, reaching up to fix his hair, but he kept his friend’s warm words in mind. And maybe he was right—maybe treating Keith like he treated Red would help him get to know their classmate better, while also proving that Lance wasn’t a complete douchebag.

“Worth a shot,” he grumbled, just loud enough for Hunk to hear. He laughed, tossing a thumbs up over his shoulder, and Lance rolled his shoulders.

 _Don’t fuck it up, Lance_ , he told himself firmly. _Just don’t fuck it up._


	2. Level Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If they stayed in the zone of friendly rivalry, he’d be in less danger of falling too far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYO HERE WE GO.
> 
> Here's chapter two of my online gaming AU! Not so much about the game, but we get to see Keith's POV so...yeah. And while I have your attention (haha) I just want to say that our favorite space gays are oblivious idiots and I love them.
> 
> Anyway, here's chapter 2! My priority now will be finishing my Shidge fic Lost and Found, so the next update might not come out for a while, so please be patient! :)

 

“I can’t _believe_ him,” Keith groaned as he pulled on his shoes. Shiro laughed from the couch, where he was cramming some textbooks into his bag. Exasperated, Keith continued, “No, seriously, Shiro, if he keeps being so goddamn cute I’m going to _die_.”

Just remembering the way that Blue had called him _Sir Knight_ made Keith’s heart do strange things. Sure, it was just part of how the sniper was perpetually a little _shit_ , but he couldn’t find it in himself to shut Blue out completely. The idiot had somehow wormed his way into Keith’s brain and wouldn’t _leave_. Everything from his infectious laugh to the slight husk in his tone when he switched to cursing in rapid-fire Spanish made Keith’s heart race.

He was simultaneously incredibly happy and absolutely crushed that he’d probably never meet the person he knew only by voice and the name Blue.

“Why don’t you _tell_ him he’s killing you?” Shiro teased, pulling him from his reminiscence and Keith heard the sound of Shiro zipping his bag. Or at least, the sound of Shiro _trying_ to zip his bag—it sounded like a struggle, with all the books crammed into it. “It can’t be that hard. You bicker with him constantly, so why not try telling him he’s being too cute for you?”

Keith nearly squawked, spinning to look at his brother incredulously. “ _Tell_ him? That he’s _cute_? C’mon, Shiro, do you think Blue needs anything else to feed his ego? He already acts like he’s pretty damn tough. Not to mention that he might never talk to me _again_ if I mentioned something like that to him. Or he’ll just tease me constantly!”

Shiro raised an eyebrow, snorting lightly as he stood and hefted the backpack onto his shoulders. “Or, _maybe_ , he’ll be flattered and reciprocate.”

“Ha, ha, ha, very funny,” Keith deadpanned. “Listen, Shiro, I’m _not_ telling him _anything_. At least not right now. Probably not ever. And we’re gonna be late for this little study date with Matt and the three stooges if you don’t hurry up.”

He grabbed his own bag, pulling one strap over his shoulder. He flexed his fingers, reaching into his back pocket to fetch his gloves, and he heard Shiro walk over to him. For a man of his size, Shiro sure could move quietly, though, and Keith hadn’t realized he was moving until he was fairly close. And then Shiro clapped him on the shoulder, in that affectionate way he often did, and smiled down at him with that knowing glint in his eyes. Keith hated that expression.

“If you really like him so much, what’s wrong with telling him?”

Keith shrugged the hand off of his shoulder, flexing his fingers again now that the leather was comfortably back in place, and grumbled, “ _Everything_. It could freak him out and then the team is shot, Shiro. Princess would _kill_ me if I did anything to ruin the little dream team she has going. Not to mention that I’ll _never_ meet him, so even if I did tell him and, on the off chance that he didn’t _hate_ me for it, nothing would ever come of it. So just...lay off.”

He turned away from the sad look in the older man’s eyes, guilt pooling in the pit of his stomach. Shiro didn’t deserve to be shut out when it was Keith who couldn’t stop complaining and, quite honestly, _pining_ over one of their _Legendary Defender_ teammates.

But...Blue’s laugh was full of cheer, and it filled Keith with warmth. It permeated even his sourest moods, lifting his spirits and often bringing a laugh to his own lips as well, though he stifled the sound before it could escape. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to fuel Blue’s ego, but inside he knew it was kind of a self-preservation tactic. But to fight his own reactions, he hid behind his half-hearted jibes and bravado.

Blue was easily riled up by bravado, and would spew some sort of challenge.

If they stayed in the zone of friendly rivalry, he’d be in less danger of falling too far.

He’d already tried a lot of different approaches to get over Blue. _He’s just a voice_ , he told himself. The mantra that had worked in the beginning stages of his feelings, however, didn’t have the same weight as it used to, because now he’d heard so much more than an arrogant voice. He could hear a personality in it, a rich history of friendliness and compassion and everything that Keith had always wanted and finally found when Shiro’s family had adopted him officially. And after learning that this warmth came from his large family—were there five siblings or six? Keith never remembered—it only made him crave closeness even more.

And then there was the smooth voice that Blue used when he said something especially cocky, usually some sort of flirt. The nostalgic tone that seeped into chat when he started talking about something his little sister had done in the past, or something his older sister had said, made Keith’s heart ache. And that didn’t even scrape the surface of how badly Keith wanted to sink into his computer chair when the Spanish started rolling.

Even _if_ Blue only slipped into the language when he was under heavy fire and cursing.

“I’m just saying, Keith,” Shiro opened the door, gesturing for the younger man to lead the way and simultaneously pulling him from his thoughts, “that you never know. We’ve never really talked about where we were from. For all you know, he could be just a few hours away.”

“I doubt it,” Keith murmured, slipping out and watching as Shiro closed the apartment door behind them. He reached up to tug his beanie lower and then shoved his fingers into the pockets of his jeans, his shoulders rising as he curled in on himself.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t _want_ to live close to Blue, because part of him wanted it more than he could ever explain. It was more that he’d done his research. Despite all the disciplinary measures that had been taken against him for violence or misconduct in school, and the failing grades he’d earned because of some of the suspensions, Keith had always been good at finding facts. That skill, and the rudimentary Spanish he’d learned from his mandatory foreign language class back in high school, had aided him in his endeavors. It helped him to understand, from the ease with which the words rolled off of Blue’s tongue, that he was a native Spanish speaker.

Some of Blue’s phrases were...unique, from Keith’s limited knowledge. His mind latched onto what the other man said, though, and he _thought_ he’d pinpointed them as Cuban slang.

Blue was probably in Cuba, then, or somewhere thereabouts. And so, as much as Keith wanted to know him, wanted to know the face and the real name behind the smooth-talking, cocky sniper he spent all of his evenings in-game with, it had been nearly a month since he had come to terms with the fact that he probably wouldn’t ever learn even half as much as he wanted to. The distance was just too great between Cuba and the Pacific Northwest, and the thought of admitting that he _liked_ someone he’d _never met_ and would probably never _meet_ was too suffocating, so he resigned himself to pining.

Even though he _knew_ it was pining, it didn’t get any easier.

“Well, at least keep the possibility open,” Shiro’s voice sounded distant, and Keith realized that he’d fallen behind. He jammed his fingers even further into his pockets and trudged ahead, falling into Shiro’s pace a half-step behind him. “You never know what might happen.”

Keith made a noncommittal sound low in his throat, and for the time being, Shiro let the subject drop. The autumn breeze was starting to get chilly, and he shrugged deeper into his black cardigan, already regretting the fact that he had passed on a heavier coat. Shiro had at least tugged on a blazer before they left, and he envied his brother’s forethought.

Instead, he tried to focus on the impending hours of studying...and promptly remembered why he had been reluctant to join Matt’s study group at first. There was really only one reason, and it had a pretty simple name:

 _Lance McClain_.

Keith had no idea what he’d done to deserve whatever hatred Lance held towards him.

When he’d first seen the lanky idiot, from a distance, he’d been kind of curious. Lance was quirky and cocky and didn’t seem fazed when the girl he was undoubtedly hitting on had flipped her blonde hair at him and stalked away on some lethal looking heels. And, when the bigger guy next to him had thumped him on the back with a laugh, he’d just shrugged and the grin he wore when he dropped an arm around his friend’s shoulder had made Keith’s heart do a strange flip.

From a distance, he’d been drawn in by wide smiles and hearty laughter.

And the next time he saw this young man, Lance had aggressively introduced himself and challenged Keith to a duel. Taken by surprise, with a violent and defensive nature himself, Keith had thrown himself into the match with all his might. And, in nearly record time, he had won by a landslide. The rest, as they say, had been history. Their relationship had been a mess of challenges and name-calling and aggressive rivalries and the initial attraction Keith had felt had burned into fuel to one-up Lance.

Maybe, by beating him, Keith had expected to impress him. He wasn’t sure exactly what his aim had been, but it certainly wasn’t intended to make their already rocky acquaintanceship even worse. And that’s _exactly_ what it had done.

It was with a sinking heart that Keith had realized that the attractive Latino boy in some of his classes absolutely hated him.

Every single conversation they’d had since Keith’s first victory over Lance was fueled by aggression and ended in shouting, fistfights, or challenges. The challenges covered various skills, ranging from races to scoring higher in the next exam to sparring matches with various weapons. Whatever the ridiculous competition Lance devised, however, Keith had yet to lose, and that probably didn’t help their relationship.

At this point, he wasn’t even sure what their relationship _was_ —were they friends? Enemies? Something like _rivals_? Lance sure knew how to rile up Keith’s competitive nature, and when he was incensed Keith didn’t have the impulse control to stop. And he’d _never_ stoop so low as to just _let_ Lance win.

Honestly, if Lance had been just a little less Lance and a little more like _Blue_ , Keith wouldn’t have such mixed feelings about a guy he played games with online. Lance, unlike Blue, already hated him, and Keith knew better than to push for friendship when he started off in a hole. That’s probably what made it so easy to shift the beginnings of his affection for Lance to the voice of an equally quirky guy he’d met in _Legendary Defender_.

“I wish I didn’t have a _type_ ,” he grumbled aloud without thinking, pulling a snort from Shiro. He glanced over his shoulder to look at Keith.

“Oh, now you’re thinking about _Lance_ , hmm?”

“Absolutely _not_ ,” Keith hissed with a start, turning his head away. It didn’t help that Shiro had already heard him complain about Lance, way back when they’d first met. It had been just over a year ago now, when they were both freshmen at Garrison University.

It had been a while since Keith had groaned about being hated by the hot guy in his year, of course, because he was more than willing to let his old crush just _die_...but when he’d first joined Matt’s study group and found out that _Lance_ was there, Shiro had learned exactly _who_ that attractive guy was. Before then, Keith had avoided directly mentioning a name, but that had gone out the window when he’d been face to face with Lance at the study group.

And if Matt hadn’t been absolutely _terrifying_ when he’d interrupted the argument that had sparked as soon as everyone had arrived that first night, Keith was sure there would have been a fistfight.

Keith noticed that Shiro was giving him another look, a single eyebrow quirked. He tried to ignore his brother’s all-knowing stare, and finally Shiro sighed.

“Mhm, sure,” he let it drop again, but Keith knew he wasn’t convinced.

Of _course_ Shiro wasn’t convinced, because it was obvious that Keith had been thinking about Lance. But he forced all thoughts of that little _shit_ out of his head, or did his best to, because he didn’t want to walk into the study group thinking about things that had already happened. His feelings for the cocky classmate were long gone, buried somewhere in a past that he didn’t want to be trapped in.

And now, for better or for worse, he was stuck with one-sided feelings for the owner of the voice at the other end of a voice chat.

Keith felt a little guilty, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps it was because his hesitation had hushed his brother, but he didn’t speak the silence between them remained until they reached the little table in a back corner of the library. It was where they had held their study group for the three weeks since its creation. Matt and his sister were already there, and Keith greeted them a little less warmly than Shiro as he took up his usual spot next to his brother.

“Yo, Keith,” the younger Holt said, grinning. “How’s that assignment for Montgomery coming along?”

“Almost done,” he responded, rummaging in his bag to pull out his research notes and the assignment sheet. “You?”

“Finished last night. It _is_ due tomorrow,” she snorted.

“Which is why I am going to start it _right now_ ,” a voice announced proudly, and a certain obnoxious classmate slipped into the seat next to her. The final member of the group slid into the empty seat between Keith and _Lance_ , and offered Keith a grin and a soft greeting.

“Hey man, how’s it going?” Hunk asked, patting him on the shoulder once, lightly. Then he greeted everyone else in turn. “‘Sup, Shiro? Matt? Pidge?”

It still threw Keith off that he knew two people in real life that went by the same nicknames as two of the members of his _Legendary Defender_ team. And Pidge, much like Matt’s little sister, was practically a certified genius, so Keith wondered if the person he knew in the game could, possibly, be her. He wasn’t a big believer in coincidence, so two super geniuses that went by the same alias in the world seemed like a pretty big leap.

Hunk, on the other hand, seemed like it would be a more common name. And while the personalities of his online friend and the sort of friend next to him were surprisingly similar, he really didn’t think that the big, modest guy he knew in real life was the type of guy that would name himself _theincredibleHUNK_ —those were traits that he’d assign to Lance, but never to anyone else.

“Lance,” Pidge drawled, “please tell me why you thought starting a three week long research project the _night before it’s due_ is a good idea?”

“Pidge, my dear, sweet child,” Lance leaned to drop his arm around her shoulders, grinning, though his eyes flicked to Keith for a split second, “I’m _Lance McClain_. I can do _anything_ —including finish this stupid project in just a night.”

Keith wondered if there was significance in that glance of his. Was he trying to brag about the fact that he’d procrastinated so long? That wasn’t really something that impressed Keith. He just thought it was irresponsible and kind of stupid.

“Your dedication to your education never ceases to amaze me,” came the expected deadpan response from Pidge. Hunk let out a laugh and Keith snorted, averting his gaze back to his own assignment. Shiro sighed and, with a glance, Keith could see that Matt was just grinning.

Keith lowered his gaze even further and wondered how long it would take for Lance to realize the error of his ways.

* * *

 

As it turned out, it took Lance approximately two hours and thirteen minutes to realize that starting his project so late was _A Bad Idea_.

Keith would _swear_ up and down that he hadn’t kept track of the time on purpose.

“Oh my _God_ ,” Lance let out a choked sound that was almost a wail as he lifted the assignment sheet to his face. “I thought I only needed three sources _total_ , not three for every _week_!” He paused to slam the paper down on the table, earning a nasty look from the page that was shelving books nearby. “ _Shit_. That’s _nine_ sources, and I only found _five_!”

Hunk heaved a sigh.

“I _told_ you to read the assignment details before you procrastinated too much, buddy,” he pointed out. And Keith could remember that conversation, as it had happened during one of these study sessions shortly after the assignment had been given. “I mean, you’ve always had a bad habit of just skimming. Maybe one day you’ll learn to listen to me when I’m _totally_ right. And you’re going to regret this even more when you sit down to work on all the stuff that Coran assigned today.”

“ _Huuuunk_!” Lance whined, his eyes shining and widening as his tone turned pleading. “Buddy, old friend, old pal! Can’t you help me find four more sources?”

“I can’t _believe_ you, Lance,” Hunk stared at him. “Coran’s history won’t finish itself, and you forgot about it. It’s due next class, man. And you know I would help if I could, but I have this huge engineering project, and I have to have the kinks in this schematic worked out by tomorrow and I’ve been struggling with linking up the—”

“That means no,” Matt supplied helpfully, cutting Hunk off before he could really get going. “I can’t help because I’m working on my communication software thesis, and Shiro is too busy working on his lesson plans for a possible class. Looks like you’re pretty much out of luck. Maybe you’ll learn to do your assignments in a more timely manner, _hmm_? Instead of playing games with all your spare time.”

Lance mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “ _You’re the one who got me into the game in the first place, asshole_ ,” but then he turned his gaze to the smaller Holt next to him. “Hey, Pi—”

“Not a chance,” she snorted, turning a page in her book. “You did this to yourself.”

“ _Piiiiiidge_ ,” Lance whined, sounding even more pathetic than usual. “You’re a little genius. It’ll take you _ten minutes_.”

“ _Nope_.”

“It’s just some mumbo jumbo about plane combat tactics!” he pressed, and Keith perked up a little, though he pretended he wasn’t interested. Pidge purposely turned from Lance and he swivelled to train those blue eyes on Hunk again. “C’mon, buddy. Plane combat tactics can’t be too hard. I’m mostly focusing on sniper planes, though, and how the Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod has made things easier and—”

“Don’t give in, Hunk,” Pidge said without even looking up as Hunk opened his mouth to speak. “He has to learn someday.”

Lance let out a sound from deep in his throat, a lot more distraught than he’d been a few minutes before. And then he pleaded again, “Someone, _please_. Finding sources is my _weakness_.”

“How many weaknesses can one person have?” Pidge asked, tone sarcastic.

Keith snorted, unable to stifle it, as he pulled some of his references, looking through the photocopies.

“Shut up, Keith!” the fretting man groused. “I’m already in pain, I don’t need you to add to it. But I’ll have you know that my topic is definitely better than yours, even if I get marked down for the sources.”

“ _Lance_ ,” Hunk hissed, elbowing him lightly. Lance sucked in a breath and the tips of his ears went red, but Keith didn’t know how to take that exchange so he just ignored it. Instead, at least for this, Keith decided to be the bigger man.

With a smirk he dropped one of his sources in front of him and slid it towards Lance.

“In that case...I guess you don’t need _this_.”

“ _Air Tactics, Volume III, Issue 17: Sniper Planes and Sniper Advanced Targeting Pods_?!” Lance very nearly lunged for it after incredulously reading the title of the photocopy, but Keith tugged it out of his way.

“Ah, but what did you say? Your topic is better, even if you get marked down for sources?” he observed, flipping through the pages. He dropped it on the small pile he’d pulled and flipped through another one. “Ah, and I guess you don’t need _The Advantages of Long-Distance Flight Combat Techniques_ , either. Or _Flight Combat: Disadvantages of Sniper Pilots_. Your assignment is going to do better than mine even without more sources, right?”

Pidge started to snicker.

“Why do you even _have_ those?!” Lance nearly screeched, though the page that was still shelving books hushed him vehemently.

“My topic is Close Range Flight Combat,” Keith made a show of rolling his neck and running a hand through his slightly unruly hair. “I looked up some sources on distance combat for the counter-argument section of the assignment sheet.”

Lance looked like he was fighting for words, and then he finally deflated and, with more hostility than Keith thought entirely necessary, spat out, “I’ll pay you. Or something. I’ll let you choose our next fight or I’ll order you a pizza or _something_ , Keith. Have mercy on me!”

Those pleading blue eyes were very tempting, but it was the tone of voice that got him. It was...lighter than Keith was used to hearing from Lance. The hostility, a trait that Lance _always_ used in his conversations with Keith, seemed a little empty, and it was that fact that softened him. He was going to let Lance stew a little longer, but if this would help him at least be on better terms with his classmate, he’d give it a shot.

“Say _please_ and order me a large sausage pizza this weekend and you have a deal,” he relented, flipping his pen in his hand.

Asking Lance to say _please_ was the most vindictive thing he allowed himself to do, considering that his brother and impulse control Shiro was watching the exchange with curious eyes. He saw that the other student was fighting the idea of using the word _please_ for several long moments. It was actually pretty amusing to watch all of the different facial expressions that Lance could make in just a span of a few short seconds and then he seemed to calm himself. It must have taken a lot, considering how much Lance hated him.

And then, grudgingly, Lance, with his usual dramatic flair, acquiesced.

“Oh, my wonderful and most gracious savior, Sir Keith, won’t you _please_ grace me with those sources you’re not planning on using?”

For added emphasis, the little _shit_ batted his eyes at Keith, and Hunk could barely stifle the laugh. Keith, for his part, tried to ignore the heat in the back of his neck at how familiar being called _Sir Keith_ was...and then realized it was because it was very reminiscent of Blue’s _Sir Knight_ from the match they’d just played. He shook his head and forced a laugh, shoving the stack of sources at the lanky man.

“Remember. I want a large sausage pizza. Friday night.”

Lance snatched up the papers with a wide-eyed look of awe, ruffling through them and then letting out a strangled laugh. “There are _six_ sources here! Keith you are a _lifesaver_ so I’ll let you off just this once. After I pay you back, though, _it’s on_. Is seven okay for the pizza on Friday? I’ll order it and have it sent straight to your door.”

“It’s a date,” Keith responded, boredly, as he finished organizing the sources in his hands. He heard an odd, choked sound, followed by Hunk laughing and thumping Lance heavily on the back. Pidge started snickering and a glance showed that Matt was hiding an amused smile behind his book and Shiro was raising a single eyebrow, a knowing look in his eyes. For a moment, Keith was confused, and then he reviewed his words, eyes trailing to where Lance had his head buried in his arms atop the stack of papers in front of him.

 _I don’t get it_ , Keith shook his head, looking back down at his assignments. _Lance is weird. Blue is so much easier to understand, even when he starts speaking in Spanish._

* * *

 

After the study session ended around eleven, when the campus library closed, Keith and Shiro returned to their apartment-style housing and Shiro claimed the shower first, since he had an earlier class in the morning. Keith slipped into his room and tossed his bag on the foot of his bed, letting out a sigh.

Lance had stayed true to his word throughout the rest of the study session, keeping himself from any particularly grating comments for once in his life, and Keith was actually kind of impressed. He wasn’t going to hold his breath, though. People like Lance were flighty and changed quickly, so it would probably be a matter of days before he was back to challenging Keith over stupid things, like grades or what pizza topping is better.

So, instead of worrying about that, Keith found himself sliding into his computer chair, the familiar feeling washing over him. His fingers itched to pick up the headset and log back into _Legendary Defender_ , but instead he opened a browser and clicked to the _Legendary_ forums.

He rarely spoke in the forums, but sometimes he checked out what people were saying about recent matches, and he was curious.

 _Legendary: Ranked Matches_ drew his eye when he reached the forum home page, and he saw that it kept jumping back to the top if another chat overtook it. There must be a pretty good match happening, if it was going that strong. Curiosity dragged the mouse to that conversation, and saw more messages coming in even as the screen loaded.

“Must’ve missed a good one,” he mused aloud, skimming the messages as they went by. There was a note about how a Tech Specialist made a stupid mistake going after the enemy and was sniped, and Keith snorted a little. But when he read about how _Pidgery_ had stabbed _Machino_Man_ in the throat, he did a double take.

**DroneBot—** _it’s no wonder pidgery’s at the top of the hacker charts man. he’s got all the speed records for hacks that mattstermind doesn’t_

**d00hick3y—** _pov was just lucky bro. aint nobody new like them gunna take out the 7th team from last ntnls, not if they were bein srs_

Keith bristled a little at that. It wasn’t like it had been an _easy_ win, because it had been far from it. In fact, for a while, Keith had been convinced that they were fighting a losing battle, though he wasn’t nearly as verbal as Hunk had been about his fears.

And then another message caught his eye.

**RedRobin—** _you don’t understand man. You should’ve seen that match_

**_RE: RedRobin:_ ** **slugg3r—** _srsly. blu_sniper’s midair shot and littleliondad’s rampage at the end? shit was lit_

**_RE: RedRobin: RE: slugg3r:_ ** **bobatross—** _not to mention how coderedxiii saved blu’s ass right off the start like i thought he was gonna give first blood right then and there. but code stopped tyrannical in his tracks. TYRANNICAL, man_

Holy shit.

It had been almost four hours since the end of the match, and the forum was still buzzing about it—about _their_ victory! Keith almost logged back into _Legendary Defender_ just to see if the rest of the Voltron Alliance knew about it, but he refrained. And then a screenshot that popped up in the thread drew his attention.

It was a shot of the _Legendary_ leaderboard for the Free Agent class.

**RedRobin—** _@d00hick3y if it wasn’t serious, how come CodeRedXIII moved into the top 15 and blu_sniper hit the top 20? This PoV team got game. I know i’m gonna be watching for them in this years Nationals_

Keith thought he’d stopped breathing. It was true—in the screenshot, there was a little _+4_ by his name, and _CodeRedXIII_ now held the twelfth spot on the leaderboard. Blue had moved from twenty-first up to twentieth, a little _+1_ next to his name.

Blue would be _thrilled_ that he was in the top twenty, though he’d probably bitch a bit about how the gap between them had widened again. Keith had faith that the sniper would close the gap again, but he had to get better at his basic hand-to-hand combat for self-defense before he could even _dream_ of catching up to Keith. He leaned back a little smugly at that thought, eyes roving the chat as it continued to progress.

It was amazing how many people were throwing in their support for the Paladins of Voltron in the Nationals tournament coming up in February. And then there was a screenshot of the Combat Specialist leaderboard, where Shiro had catapulted from thirteenth to _ninth_. In the top ten. Keith didn’t even wait for a screenshot from there. Instead, he opened a new tab and pulled up the Tech Specialist rankings to look at them. Hunk had moved up one spot to fourteenth, but Pidge had remained firmly in third place, behind only _Mattstermind_ and _theCoranic_ , who was actually the kooky second-in-command for the Voltron Alliance and a member of the disbanded team, Kingdom of Altea.

With Blue’s ascension, though, it now meant that the entirety of their team were top players in their respective classes. It was kind of exhilarating, and he found himself moving before he could help it. He clicked on the overall leaderboard and scanned for their names.

At seventh, Pidge was still the highest ranked player on their team, and at fifty-second, Blue was still the last. But, considering it was the overall _Legendary_ leaderboards, that was pretty _damn_ good.

He heard the shower kick off excitement welled again.

“ _Shiro_!” Keith pushed his rolling chair back and scrambled to his door. He _had_ to tell him. The bathroom door creaked open after some shuffling around inside, and a head poked out, covered by a towel.

“Keep it down, Keith, our neighbors might be sleeping,” his older brother chided gently, reaching up to dry his hair. “What do you need?”

“They’re still talking about it,” he said incredulously.

“They? Who’s they? And what’s _it_?”

“Our match. Earlier. They’re still talking about it in the _Legendary: Ranked Matches_ thread, even though it’s been four hours since the match ended.”

“We did beat the team that placed seventh in last year’s Nationals,” Shiro remarked, stepping out in his pajama pants.

“That’s not all, though. I moved up to twelfth in the Free Agents ranking, and Blue moved up to twentieth. We’re all in the top twenty in our classes now, Shiro. And _you’re the ninth ranked Combat Specialist_. In the _world_.”

Shiro blinked in surprise, and then he laughed.

“That’s awesome!” he clapped Keith on the shoulder. “Princess will be happy with that, at least.”

Keith groaned and shook his head, muttering, “No, she wants us to be _the_ best. Not just some of the best. So she’ll never be able to rest until we hold the first few ranks or something.”

“Come on, she’s not _that_ strict,” and even though Shiro had said it, Keith didn’t miss that his brother wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Now get your shower and go to bed, little brother. We’ve got classes tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, _Mom_ ,” the younger man shot back, smirking. Shiro rolled his eyes and slipped off towards his room, bidding Keith a goodnight as he went. With a groan, he added, “Night, Shiro,” just before his bedroom door clicked shut. He heard his brother chuckle and rolled his eyes, slipping back into his room to grab his own pajamas before slipping into the bathroom.

* * *

 

Keith could barely focus on his classes the next day. It was more like moving through the motions, copying down whatever notes were on the slides in his lectures and making sure he handed in the assignments that were due, including the one he’d finished last night at the study group and even helped Lance with.

He _totally_ didn’t notice that Lance had chugged half of an energy drink before class had started, and it _definitely_ wasn’t because Lance had only been about halfway through the assignment when their study group had ended.

It was far more amusing to watch Hunk and Pidge constantly poke Lance awake than it was to listen to the lectures. And considering that, for some reason, he had most of his classes with Lance and at least one of the others, he spent a lot of time trying not to snicker at all the times Lance nearly shouted when they prodded him back to awareness. The glare that Professor Montgomery shot them as he sent his aide down the aisles to collect the research assignment sent Hunk cowering back into his seat. When he turned away, however, a drowsy Lance lifted a middle finger at his back and Pidge snorted.

Yup. Watching them was a lot more fun than classes, though he’d never admit it. To _anyone_.

And it wasn’t just that. Keith was struggling to focus because he was still high on the new positions his teammates held on the _Legendary_ leaderboards. Only top tier teams were ever all in the top twenty on their respective class boards, which said a lot about the Paladins of Voltron. PoV was a new, up-and-coming team, but they were making a name for themselves and it was kind of amazing.

That, and he was positively _dying_ to login after classes and see how Blue would react to finally being in the top twenty.

Would he start blabbering a mile a minute in Spanish? Would his voice pitch up from the excitement, into that squeaky, endearing tone? Would he focus on being in the top twenty, or would he focus more on the fact that Keith was now three spots further ahead?

Whatever the case was, Keith wanted to know.

And, after slipping by the food court to grab a burger and fries for his dinner around five, he was finally able to slide into the chair at his desk and open _Legendary Defender_. His fingers moved on autopilot almost, typing in his password with practiced ease as the character selection screen popped up. The max number of characters was three, but only one of his slots was filled, and soon enough, _CodeRedXIII_ was appearing in the center of the Voltron Alliance’s guild ship, a castle-ship that Princess, or _LionGoddess_ , had apparently saved for ages to afford.

The group’s chosen voice chat application started up simultaneously, and he heard a scrambled mess that sounded like the end of some sort of Spanish phrase, maybe, before he was actually greeted.

“ _Welcome aboard, Red_ ,” came Pidge’s tone, sounding almost bored. “ _Please forgive Blue, he’s being dramatic._ ”

“ _Dramatic?! Why, I never!_ ” Blue’s tone was pitchy and Keith suppressed a snort. He’d totally called it. “ _Pidgisita, if just celebrating being in the top twenty on the_ Legendary _leaderboard for Free Agents is being_ dramatic _, I’d hate to see what you consider_ hysterics _!_ ”

“ _You can hardly use_ your _definition of dramatic or hysteric for normal people, Blue_ ,” Pidge snarked, and Keith finally did laugh. He heard Blue huff a little on his end of the line, but it didn’t last long.

“ _Whatever. I’m not going to let the little sourpuss over there take away the sweet, sweet taste of my victory. Or take away the fact that I am_ totally _one of the top twenty Free Agents in the fuckin’_ world _! It’s so hard for snipers to make the top twenty, guys, don’t you_ understand _?! The ones that are ahead of me have been playing since the beginning, man! And there’s only like, six of us ranked this high anyway. I’m like, a legend!_ ”

“ _You’re still only barely in the top twenty, man,_ ” Hunk’s voice interjected uncertainly. “ _Don’t get too worked up over it, because there are lots of other good players. And like you said, it’s harder for snipers to get up there, so it’s probably harder to hold, too. Don’t forget that you only just overtook UrMom, and he’s still an active player. It wouldn’t be—_ ”

“ _Dios mío, Hunk, my main man, my bro...just stop talking. Let me celebrate!_ ”

Keith was more than content to listen as Blue started gushing again. He even started tossing out some stats, talking about how many more points he’d need to move up in the rankings again and how, if they played their cards right in their next match, against the right kind of opponents, he could jump three spots.

Blue may seem a little scatterbrained sometimes, but when he was passionate about something, it was abundantly clear. And it proved that he was smarter than he let on, because Pidge had already debunked the theory that he was getting all his facts from her. He did all the calculations for his PP and his rankings himself, she said. And, as Hunk couldn’t keep a secret to save his life, it was pretty obvious that _he_ wasn’t helping.

These traits were part of why Keith couldn’t squash the budding feelings for the cocky sniper. He might only know Blue as a bright voice in the team chat, but he could picture a toothy smile and twinkling eyes, though his imagination had never settled on the color. Did Blue have deep chocolate eyes? Amber eyes? Hazel? Those seemed the most likely, but he also couldn’t help picturing sparkling blue eyes to contrast with tan skin.

 _I wish I knew what he looked like_ , Keith found himself thinking, not for the first time, as Blue let out a string of excited Spanish. He enjoyed the way his friend’s voice wavered with the force of his exclamations, the cheer in his tone.

It was nice while it lasted.

“ _Calm down there, Blue,_ ” Princess’s voice sounded, and Keith was mildly surprised. He hadn’t even noticed that she was online. Her tone was no-nonsense, as usual, when she continued, “ _Like Hunk said, it would be unwise to get ahead of yourself so soon. If you haven’t realized yet, Red has moved up to twelfth place on the Free Agent board. Why don’t you congratulate him?_ ”

 _And there it goes_ , the thought crossed his mind, and he silently bid farewell to the happy sound of Blue’s babble.

“ _Wait, what?!_ ” the sounds of furious typing crossed the headsets, and after a few moments, Blue let out a strange sound. Keith detected the elements of a groan and a wail all in one, and then the sniper continued, “ _Oh, man, it’s true! Red, why do you keep doing that? Stop putting space between us on the leaderboards!_ ”

Keith opened his mouth, but before he could speak, Pidge’s sarcasm supplied, “ _He can’t help it if he’s just better than you are._ ”

“ _No one asked you, Pidgeroo_ ,” Blue shot back instantly. “ _Now I have all that ground to make up. Ugh. But it’s no big deal. Everyone knows I’m the best sniper there is, so I’ll catch up in absolutely no time. Hear that, Red? You better be shaking in your Altean leather boots, because it’s on!_ ”

“Is it really?” he let himself adopt a bored tone. There was still a lilting, teasing tone to it that Keith swore he’d stolen from Blue, somehow. “I seem to recall thrashing you the last time we had a one-on-one match. What makes you think you’ve got what it takes to catch up to me?”

“ _Ohoho, is that a challenge I hear, my dear knight?_ ” the teasing tone and those affectionate words did strange, strange things to Keith’s sanity. Sometimes, even though it was pretty irrational, Keith convinced himself that Blue was doing it on purpose. “ _The last time we fought, I was sick. You remember my cold, don’t you, bro? This time it won’t be so easy for you! So you just tell me a time and a place, and we’ll see who’s laughing when I pummel your ass!_ ”

Pulse pounding in his ears, he forced his voice to remain as level as possible as he challenged, “Friday, seven o’clock? Kerberos map?”

With a boisterous laugh, Blue managed to stop Keith’s heart with just a simple phrase that he had used just yesterday on Lance McClain, of all people.

“ _It’s a date!_ ”


	3. Level Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of forming a verbal response, Lance’s mind filled with the moment, just yesterday, where he’d blurted to Keith, “Did you know that the force of gravity on Jupiter is so strong that if we were able to stand on its surface you would instantly liquify?”
> 
> Why his brain provided that, of all things, Lance may never fully understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all! how's it going?
> 
> confession time: I've had this chapter like, 4/5 done for about two weeks now, but I forced myself to update one of my Shidge fics first because it had been a month. Not to mention I struggled with writer's block for the last 3K of this chapter.
> 
> Anyway, here it is! And I'll put some information about the Cuban slang in the end notes! And a friendly reminder that, according to my source, Cuban Spanish and slang sounds a lot more aggressive (which is probably why I like it so much AND like using it for Lance so much, aside from the fact that he is, indeed, Cuban).
> 
> Here you go!

 

Lance thought it had been rough at the study group, when Keith had so casually said _it’s a date_ that it had made his heart stop. A strange choking sound had escaped before he could help himself, and then he’d buried his face in his arms, atop the stack of lifesaving research sources that Keith had so graciously given him. Hunk was there, patting his back like the total bro he was, but Pidge was just snickering over it.

It was _awful_ and he’d been certain that he was about to bid farewell to this cruel, cruel world.

Even if Keith didn’t mean anything by it, he just...couldn’t help himself. Lance had tried to be nicer, though he’d still flubbed it and been a little more scathing than necessary, as usual, and this was the result.

When he and Hunk returned to their dorm, he had flopped on his bed for a few moments to breathe and reminisce. Lance had pressed his face into his pillow and felt the cool material against his flaming cheeks, and the words still replayed in his head.

 _It’s a date_.

They were meaningless, probably, of course they were, but Lance was high on euphoria. If that was the only time he’d ever hear those words out of Keith’s mouth, he was going to make damn sure he treasured it.

And then Hunk reminded him that he still needed to finish that assignment, because it was due the next day. Lance scrambled from his bed with Spanish curse under his breath and reached for his bag. When he managed to dig out the folder he needed, he also grabbed his laptop and started shoving things he didn't need off of his desk. He'd pick it up later, and finishing the assignment had to be his top priority.

Lance worked straight through the night, piecing his paper together and editing as well as he could on his own. He finished the stupid homework at about six in the morning and crashed.

That is, until Hunk shook him awake at eight-thirty so they could get ready for their nine o’clock lecture. He groaned and fought and dozed for another ten minutes until his friend—undoubtedly with Lance’s best interests and grades in mind—grabbed him by the ankles and yanked him bodily from his bed with a startled yelp.

“Oh, man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to pull you all the way out, but class is in fifteen minutes and at least brush your teeth and change clothes because we’ve _got to go_! Professor Davis is going to flip if you’re late to his class _again_ and you know it isn’t pretty, and I’m still sorry but you’ll be fine, you didn’t hit your head—”

Lance started to tune Hunk out as he scrambled to throw on his cleanest dirty pair of jeans—he _really_ needed to do laundry tonight, huh?—and yanked a random tee out of his open drawer. Hunk was already digging through Lance’s stuff to put the right books and homework in his bag, the great big teddy bear, so Lance darted into the bathroom and quickly brushed his teeth.

Even in their rush, Hunk allowed Lance two minutes to slip through one of the campus convenience stores and buy six energy drinks—Monster, Venom, AMP, Rockstar, he wasn’t picky—before running to class.

“You’re the man, Hunk!” he wheezed as he dropped, wearily, into the seat beside Pidge, who looked amused at their last minute arrival. Lance tried to ignore her and cracked open the first of his energy drinks. The fruit punch tang awakened his taste buds, and he nursed it throughout that first class, trying to follow the English lesson with even less success than usual.

After being painfully jabbed awake by Pidge at least four times, Lance turned and pleaded, softly, for Hunk to keep an eye on him instead of letting the _demon child_ do it.

Pidge elbowed him again and he barely stifled the yelp.

In the hour break between that class and the next one, where that damn research assignment was due, Lance face-planted on the table in the quad that he and Pidge occupied, as she snorted and tapped away at her laptop. He didn’t even bother asking her what she was working on, because his brain was fuzzy and the energy drink was barely helping. He dozed, using his trusty jacket as a pillow, and ignored when his phone buzzed lightly with a text as he started to drift off.

At the beginning of that class, Lance chugged his second energy drink. Hunk, back from his engineering lecture for this lesson, looked at his roommate with concern, and Pidge just snickered to herself.

“You’re gonna kill yourself with those,” she finally murmured as the class was pulling out their assignments.

“Pidget, I’m not in the mood,” Lance groaned, flopping his completed assignment on the long table in front of him and reaching up to massage his temples. He felt the weird pulsing energy throughout his entire being, and the jitters were starting. The signs of his energy drink high finally kicking in, but only after the second whole drink. _Typical_.

It didn’t make him any less aware of the fact that Keith sat practically right behind him. In fact, it might have made him even _more_ aware of that fact.

_What if he’s looking at me? What if he sees how bad I look right now?! I didn’t get a chance to do my facial treatment this morning, or brush my hair, or shave—oh my god I can feel the stubble! What if he doesn’t like stubble? What if he doesn’t like guys who chug energy drinks? What if—_

“Breathe, buddy,” Hunk nudged him from the side, and Lance suddenly realized that he had, in fact, stopped breathing for a few moments. With an awkward cough to hide his gasp, he took a deep breath. His big friend gave a concerned twitter and patted his back, glancing up to where the professor had started collecting assignments. “You only have one more class after this, and after lunch. You can have a soda or a coffee or something when we eat, but you only get to drink one more energy drink, man. And then when you’re out of that lab you’re going to go take a nap. Got it?”

“Sure, _Mamá_ ,” Lance grumbled, eyelids heavy but limbs still twitchy from the energy drinks.

He had a soda with the lunch that was comprised of three greasy slices of cafeteria pizza and some fries. It was simple and tasted like cardboard, and he regretted every second of it. The cafeteria meals were covered by one of his surprising scholarships, though, so he didn’t have to pay when he ate there. He forced it down, washing the taste away with caffeine, and tiredly turned to Hunk.

“I’d kill for your homemade pot pies, buddy,” he groused, sullenly. Hunk laughed and patted his back, nearly knocking Lance over. He was a lot more out of it than he’d thought, if a friendly pat from the gentle giant could nearly knock him out of his chair.

“Maybe we’ll get the stuff this weekend and make some,” he suggested, returning to his own cardboard burger. “I’ve been itching to cook something since last Wednesday.”

“You’re gonna share with me, right?” Pidge asked dryly from across the table, tapping away at her tablet with one hand as she ate a few fries with the other.

“Pidgeroo, you live at home. You don’t _have_ to survive on... _this_ ,” Lance demonstrated the final half of his last slice of pizza. “Speaking of...you should let us come over for dinner sometime, man. Homemade food and an actual _house_ …”

He slipped into daydreams of home, his mother scolding him in rapid Spanish as he snagged a bite before dinner was served. Dishes as punishment had never sounded so sweet, now that he was miles away and craving some good homecooked food.

She snorted, drawing his attention back to the present.

Man, he hated being sleep-deprived and hopped up on energy drinks. It made him about six times as scatterbrained as normal, if that was even possible to begin with. But...it was kind of exhilarating at the same time, despite the potential health risks.

Later, Lance made a mental note that he wouldn’t tell Hunk that he’d had to drink _two_ more energy drinks to stay awake through the super boring chem lab he had after lunch.

And then he made it back to his room, around three, and found himself collapsing in a heap on his bed. He hadn’t even dropped his bag or taken off his shoes before he was dropping off. As he slipped into sleep, he could have sworn he heard himself snore, which was a really weird sensation. After that, though, his awareness was gone, almost as if someone had flipped a switch.

 _Lights out_ , was the last fragile thought that slithered through his mind.

Lance didn’t so much as stir when Hunk came in, until about half an hour later when Hunk shook him roughly awake, babbling about a mile a minute.

“—ance! C’mon, Lance, buddy, you gotta wake up—you gotta _see_. This is a _big deal_ , man!”

“Mmmph,” Lance rolled to his back, weakly waving his arm at Hunk, trying to shoo him, “five more minutes…”

“Lance, you’re the _twentieth ranked Free Agent in the world_ , get your ass out of bed and celebrate!”

What happened in the next thirty seconds wasn’t exactly the highlight of Lance’s life. At first, he groggily uttered a, “Huh?” and then listened to a few more lines of Hunk’s rambling, caught something about the _Legendary_ boards, and being in the top twenty, and shot up so quickly and with such a strange, strangled sound that Hunk, hovering over him, was shocked speechless.

Needless to say, Lance groaned aloud and rolled off his bed, hitting the floor with a thud as he clutched his aching forehead.

“ _¡Que carajo!_ ” he yowled like a wounded cat. Hunk had staggered back and was currently sagging in Lance’s computer chair, rubbing his nose with tears in his eyes. “ _¡Me cago en tu madre!_ ”

“Buddy, we’ve been friends long enough that I _know_ what that means,” the big guy grunted, pushing himself up. “And I know it’s just a phrase, but keep talking like that and you’ll be banned from eating my cooking for the rest of the semester. Including the end of the year cookout.”

“What?!” Lance snapped up, nearly falling again from the quick motion and the throbbing in his skull. “No, no, nonono! That’s cruel and unusual punishment, bro!”

“What’s cruel and unusual punishment is the way you _headbutted_ me when I was _just_ trying to tell you that after our match last night, you’re finally in the top twenty on the Free Agent _Legendary_ board,” Hunk groused, returning to his own computer desk with a sniff. “No need to be so—”

“ _What_?!” Lance scrambled off the floor as his eyes widened. “Did you say _top twenty_?!”

Without waiting of his friend’s confirmation, he lurched for his computer desk, waking it up and getting to the login screen for the _Legendary Defender_ official website faster than ever before. And the _Legendary_ boards were next, with the forums exploding around it. He spotted his team’s name a few times and felt a giddy surge of glee...and then he found it.

  1. _blu_sniper [+1]_



With a whoop, Lance leapt to his feet and started to dance around the room. His mild annoyance forgotten, Hunk graced him with a laugh. He urged Lance to login to the game then, because the Voltron Alliance guild chat was apparently _lit_ with talk of the Paladins of Voltron and their success. As usual, Lance scarcely needed the prodding to pop in and boast.

If he found himself suddenly reminiscing about the conversation with Keith last night at the study group, and about the pizza he owed him, and about those words that had broken him, they totally didn’t influence the way he told Red, “It’s a date!” when the time and place for their next challenge was determined.

* * *

 

It was Wednesday, as Lance was simultaneously looking forward to _two_ things, that he realized a very important fact.

“Hunk,” Lance grabbed his friend’s arm, trying to anchor himself. “Hunk, I’ve made a huge mistake. A really, really huge mistake. What do I _do_?!”

“Did you flirt with the professor’s daughter again?” Pidge remarked calmly from the side, lifting her eyes from the laptop in front of her for just a few seconds. Lance swore she was never away from that damn contraption. “Remember that D you got just for telling Vanessa Montgomery that she was, and I quote, _bangin’,_ right in front of Professor Montgomery?”

“It’s not about _flirting_ ,” Lance whined. “Not every time I’m in trouble has to do with _flirting_.”

“It’s either flirting or homework,” Pidge quipped back, and then smirked over her screen and slyly added, “or _Keith_.”

His voice rose as he protested, “All of my problems aren’t just those three things!”

It didn’t matter that it was kind of related to all three of those. _Flirting_ because of a single, flippant phrase that had been used _on_ him and that he’d used on another. _Homework_ because his dilemma had started at the study group, when Keith had offered his extra sources, the fucking irresistible asshole that he was. And...well, Keith’s involvement was self-explanatory.

Hunk and Pidge both stared at him, and Lance fidgeted under their gazes.

“Spill,” Hunk finally sighed, waving for him to hurry up. “I’ve only got fifteen minutes before I have to go to my next class and I want your dilemma in the open and solved before I have to try to focus on calculus.”

“The pizza I have to order for Keith on Friday and my match with Red are at the same time,” Lance spat out more quickly than he’d ever thought possible. “I mean, I’m ordering the pizza online and having it delivered anyway but I wanted to take a minute to appreciate it and now I’m going to be trying not to die to Red and that will take like, all the concentration I have, so how am I supposed to enjoy the fact that I’m actually sending Keith a gift out of the goodness of my heart and not out of petty rivalries?”

“Holy crow, Lance, is that _all_? You were being so melodramatic over _that_?” Pidge’s tone was deadpan, and he thought it was her favorite one to use on him. She certainly liked to be sarcastic with him, and he tapped his foot impatiently.

“This is _serious_ ,” he whined insistently.

“Lance, order the pizza and have them put a note in it in the special request section or something, man,” Hunk pointed out. “Please send a love note or something because it’s about time you confessed to him.”

“ _Hunk!_ ” Lance’s voice was a squeak. “I’m not—why would I ever—through _pizza_? Who confesses through a _pizza_?”

Pidge, who had been laughing for some reason that he didn’t _want_ to comprehend and had been dutifully ignored by the other two for the last few seconds, piped up, “I don’t know, Lance, that seems a lot more suave than your usual attempts at flirting with Keith.”

“You’re not _helping_ ,” Lance mumbled, dropping his head to the table. The wrapper from his sandwich crinkled under his forehead and he found that he didn’t particularly care. “I was being _serious_ , man. Just thinking about how Keith will be getting his pizza sometime around when I’m trying to fight against Red is making me freak out.”

“Buddy,” Hunk, as usual, dropped his big hand on Lance’s bony shoulder, “there’s nothing anyone can do about this but you. You can either ask Keith if you can send it earlier or later, or ask Red if you can postpone your match because you’re having a crisis about sending a pizza to your crush.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t tell Red that it’s for his crush,” Pidge wasn’t looking at them, the telltale clacking of her keyboard rising in the air. “Just tell him you gotta push it back to mentally prepare yourself. He’ll probably buy that, and the bonus is that it’s true.”

“Mentally prepare myself? _Ha_ , more like give him time to prepare for his defeat!” the bravado didn’t come across very well, muffled against the table, but it drew laughs from his two friends.

It wasn’t exactly the solution he’d been hoping for, but it had helped him, just a little, and he was able to move through the rest of his day like usual. And, since it was just like usual, he didn’t give his previous conversation a second thought for the next couple of days.

Bantering with Red while they traversed a dungeon to get parts for Pidge was infinitely more fun, and if he was up late again doing homework, it was so worth it.

“Bet I can take out more Mutated Yalmors than you can,” Lance found himself challenging, for the third time in just two hours. He raised his combat rifle at the ready and managed to press _ENTER_ and type a _/wink_ into the dialogue box, laughing as he heard Pidge groan at his neverending competitiveness.

“ _I’ve already taken out seventy-two more than you tonight_ ,” Red’s tone held a bit of amusement underneath the outward exasperation. “ _What makes you think you have a chance of catching up, let alone beating that_?”

“ _Ugh, get a room_ ,” Lance wasn’t sure how many times Pidge had said it, and with the knowledge that Hunk wanted him to treat _Keith_ like he treated _Red_ suddenly made a lot more sense. He felt the flush in his neck, in his face, in his ears.

“ _Blue_?” someone’s voice prompted, though he wasn’t sure whose, and he scrambled for something to say.

“I-it won’t be that hard to kill that many mobs, ha,” his voice was pitchy, shit, “c’mon, Red, whaddaya take me for? The almighty Blue, rifleman extraordinaire, is gonna show you _just_ how it’s done!”

“ _What’s up with your voice? Scared?_ ” Red snorted, though his tone was pinched.

 _Ha_ , Lance thought, _I’m getting to him._

He just didn’t know if he was getting under Red’s skin as much as Red was getting under his, and he didn’t know _why_ Red was getting under his skin by just _existing_. And Lance blamed Hunk for _everything_. Because now that he had to think about treating Keith like Red, as his friend had suggested, several things were cropping up similar and his mind wasn’t sure how to handle that. He had viewed his rivalries with both as things completely separate until that moment.

“Let’s just get this over with, so I can kick your ass!”

_Perfect. Nothing’s wrong with me. Nothing at all._

* * *

 

Friday morning, as he was goofing off before classes with Hunk, the recollection struck him with the force of _Snipa63’s_ energy-stabilized silent shot.

“ _Pinga_ ,” Lance was remarkably subdued for a moment, going limp in Hunk’s half-hearted headlock, and that was enough of a cue for the bigger man to stop and release his friend. He pulled back with concerned eyes and brows furrowed, and Lance found himself being coaxed to meet Hunk’s gaze.

“Earth to Lance. Buddy, what’s up?”

“I never…” his voice was _not_ an embarrassing squeak, and Hunk’s eyebrows _didn’t_ shoot up in surprise because of it. He cleared his throat, for _no reason whatsoever, thank you_ , and continued in a garbled rush, “I never talked to Red or Keith about the, uh, _conflict_.”

It had nothing to do with the fact that he’d spent part of that time agonizing over how Keith and Red had the same drawl when they dragged something that he said. It was just a stupid coincidence. And he wasn’t agonizing over the prickle of that crush he’d had on Red way back when they’d first teamed up that made him blurt whatever was on his mind that was starting to reemerge. And Hunk might not have remarked, but he had to have noticed.

Hunk, at the news that Lance had just given, merely sighed.

“Lance, man, you had half a week to figure that out and you didn’t?” Hunk shook his head. “The match is tonight, and everything else. What are you going to do?”

Instead of forming a verbal response, Lance’s mind filled with the moment, just yesterday, where he’d blurted to Keith, _“Did you know that the force of gravity on Jupiter is so strong that if we were able to stand on its surface you would instantly liquify?”_

Why his brain provided _that_ , of all things, Lance may never fully understand.

Keith had stared at him blankly, eyebrows rising into that damn _perfect_ fringe, and Lance had barely been able to pull himself away from staring into the surprised, curious eyes of his _rival_ before he squeaked and bolted out of the lunch line. He had slipped into the salad bar line, next to Pidge, and refused to explain why his voice was high-pitched or why his face was apparently flaming.

The memory made a strangled whine escape, and he turned his pleading eyes on his best friend and wheezed, “Help me?”

He looked very much like he wanted to let Lance stew in this mess he’d made, but this was Hunk, and letting Lance flounder was very much what Pidge would have done. After a very short-lived attempt at combating the wide blue puppy dog eyes that Lance employed against him, the soft-hearted giant finally gave in. Hunk was the weakest to that particular tactic, even though he’d known Lance longest and had longer to get used to it.

“Ugh, _fine_. I’ll send Keith a text to tell him that the pizza will be a little late, but I haven’t decided a reason yet. It’ll probably be something about how you want to make him think you’re not sending it, only for him to appreciate it more when it shows up.” Hunk threw his hands up. “He should believe it. You’re stubborn enough about your dumb rivalry for that.”

“You’re a _lifesaver_ ,” Lance breathed, sagging against Hunk’s side and ignoring his jibe, just this once. Pidge was rubbing off on Hunk, just a little, and he didn’t want his best friend to decide that letting Lance stew in the mess of his own making would be more fun than helping.

“Does that mean I get a pizza with a sappy love note, too?” with a laugh, Hunk nudged Lance in the side. The lanky man squawked indignantly and danced away, cursing in Spanish as he shook his hand at his friend, declaring that there _was_ no love note, _thank you very much_ , only to get Hunk’s nice, full, cheerful laughter in return. And all was well.

That is, until it wasn’t. Like, _at all_.

Later, Hunk and Pidge would tell Lance that he was being overdramatic when he declared that this was _it_. The end. The final straw. And maybe, just maybe, Lance would agree. But in the moment? Oh, no, absolutely not. He was done for.

This was the day that Lance McClain finally bit the dust once and for all.

And no, he wasn't talking about quitting _Legendary Defender_ , but that would be a side effect of his impending death.

"This is it," his voice was a high-pitched squeak as he admitted it aloud.

Having a physical education class with _Keith_ of all people was definitely not good for his sanity.

Pidge was already looking at him in confusion, and then she followed his gaze to where Hunk stood on the opposing team, gesticulating wildly. Lance’s attention, however, was completely and utterly focused on Hunk’s companion, who was laughing openly at something the engineer had said. And even as Lance watched, Keith reached up, taking something from Hunk, and started to pull his hair back. When he started choking on air, he heard the sound of a sudden understanding from the petite woman beside him.

“Of course,” she remarked dryly. Of course, Lance chose to ignore it for the sake of his mental breakdown.

" _Luego, Pidgisita. Ya, me voy con dios,_ ” he murmured, hand over his heart. Then, for her benefit, continued, “I'm officially deceased. I'm dead. It was nice knowing you, but we have reached the end of the line. The final hour. You're officially speaking to a corpse right now."

"Gross," Pidge remarked, snorting. "Put your eyes back in your head, Lance, and pick your jaw up. They're on the other team, so just _focus_."

"Pidgerino, Pidgeroo, Pidgey-pie, I _can't_. Do you see that?" Lance gestured pointedly. "Keith's hair. In a _ponytail_. This is it, Pidge. I'm done. He's so _perfect_ I can't take it, I'm gonna die right here and there's nothing you can do about it. I won't be able to buy his pizza later because I'll be _dead_ and I won't be able to beat Red into the dirt because I'll be _dead_ and—"

Rolling her eyes and prodding him in the side with her bony elbow, she drawled, "Breathe, loser, or he'll notice that you're drooling and think you're even lamer than before."

“I am not _lame_ ,” Lance drew himself up to his full height, towering over her. “Don’t you know who you’re talking to? Back in _Flight Simulator_ , they used to call me _The Tailor_ , ‘cause of how I—”

“— _thread the needle_ , yeah, yeah. But no one plays _Flight Simulator_ anymore, man. Not when we have _real_ flight simulators here, and especially not since the game came out almost twelve years ago now. Get with the time, Gramps,” Pidge rolled her shoulders and took the jersey that someone passed her. When a second nearly slid from her grasp, she caught it and flung it at Lance’s face.

“Hey, it was a good game,” he grumbled defensively, slipping the red mesh over his head. A flash of blue caught his eye, and he watched as Keith went through the same motions, only with a blue jersey instead. “Wait a second, do they get the _blue_ jerseys on the _other_ team?! This is unfair, I say. Unfair! Blue is my lucky color. What am I supposed to do with _red_?! I call foul play, man!”

“So much for it being the _end_ ,” Pidge quipped, straightening her own jersey. “If it was, I’d finally get my peace and quiet.” A few more moments passed, and when she was satisfied with her jersey, she glanced back up, following Lance’s gaze. Another smirk crossed her lips and she added, “Besides, isn’t it perfect? If blue is your lucky color, and Keith’s wearing it, isn’t it your lucky day?”

Lance released a garbled groan from somewhere deep in his throat, and she snickered again, moving towards the rest of their team as they grouped together by the coach.

“Alright, ladies!” the coach’s voice rose over the light chatter, and Lance winced in sympathy for those who were next to the man. That’s what happened when the physical education instructors were all drill sergeants—or at least, it seemed like they were. With lungs like that, Lance would have been surprised if they were anything else. “As you see, you’re in two teams today! Red team, you’re on this side of the court,” he gestured, “and blue team is on the other. The name of the game today is dodgeball!”

 _Oh, fuck yeah_ , Lance grinned despite himself. Pidge groaned a little, but he knew she liked the game just as much as he did. She was small and it was easy for her dodge and weave, and she was a terror when she was on the opposing team. Especially since it was like a personal goal of hers to make Lance’s life a living hell, starting with getting him out of the game early.

The rest of the class seemed to share the excitement, though, if the murmur that arose was anything to go by.

“You know the rules, ladies!” the sergeant was back at it again. “Avoid direct hits to the head! You’re out if the ball hits you but you don’t catch it. When you catch a ball, you get one of your teammates back in the game, in the order they got out in, so we’ll form neat lines, y’hear? Now get on your sides of the field and get ready!”

The assistant teacher made a trek across the center of the court, placing seven squishy dodgeballs at even intervals along the line.

“Yo, McClain,” Lance felt a nudge in the shoulder and turned to find one of his teammates there. “You go for the last ball, I’ll go for the one beside it. We’re some of the quickest on the team, so we’re our best chance. Especially since they have Kogane.”

“Ha, _Keith_? I got him, don’t sweat it,” Lance laughed, waving his teammate off, “ _and_ I got that ball. Just focus on getting there.”

“I bet I could grab it quicker than him,” Pidge mumbled after the teammate had laughed and bumped shoulders with Lance.

Rolling his eyes as he stretched to loosen his muscles, Lance quipped, “Why don’t you go for the one in the center? Steal it before they even get a chance. Show them how it’s done, Pidgerino.”

With a derisive snort, she retorted, “Maybe I will.”

Lance crouched at the ready, sharing a nod with the classmate—what was his _name_ , even?—that had set up their current plan of action. Pidge had found her place, just a few spots over, and was eyeballing one of the centermost dodgeballs.

All too late, he realized that he was losing a prime opportunity. Dodgeball was one of his best games, and he was losing his chance to compete with Keith right from the start, just because Keith was on the other corner of the court, getting ready to go for a separate ball.

And then the whistle blew and Lance ripped his attention forward, propelling himself toward the ball.

He heard Pidge’s triumphant shout and the sounds of their teammates congratulating her even as he pulled his own squishy treasure to his chest and leapt back from the line, eyes searching for whoever on the Blue team had a dodgeball in their hands. The split looked pretty even—Pidge, Lance, and one other guy on their team had managed to grab a ball, and three people on the other side, including Keith, had managed the same.

Of _course_ Keith had one. It was all because he wasn’t facing off against Lance. Lance lamented the fact that he’d lost his chance to challenge Keith right from the beginning of the game. As it stood now, he’d just have to make his way over to that cranky mullet in the course of the game and sweep him off his feet.

 _Not_ in the gay way, though Lance was amenable to that plan of action, too.

 _Focus_ , Lance reprimanded himself, tearing his eyes from that damn _ponytail_ to keep watching the other guys with dodgeballs, too. As much as he wanted to stare at Keith, ogle at how good he looked in _blue_ even though _red_ was totally his color and as much as he wanted to give into the temptation to melt from the inside out because of the strange things that Keith's movements did to him, Lance knew that his team needed him to focus.

Dodgeball was his game, and he prided himself on his numerous victories. Now wasn’t the time to lose his cool. He had to play one of the best games of dodgeball he’d ever played, especially if he wanted to show off to... _don’t finish that thought_ , he told himself, glancing quickly over at Keith one more time.

Lance shook himself, narrowed his eyes, and searched for the perfect first out of the game. He was usually pretty good at picking them, and when he finally settled on a reedy boy whose smirk was nearly as unnerving as Pidge’s, he grinned to himself. A quick glance around gave him another few prime suspects, but while Keith Kogane was a priority target, Lance didn’t put his crosshairs on him just yet.

Some victories would taste sweeter if they came later in the game, after all.

He heard the guy next to him, the one who had made the plan but had failed to get his own ball, yelp when the other team got impatient and threw at him. He dodged and Lance took that moment to throw.

_Thwack!_

It hit the reedy boy in the hip and the first, “Out!” rang from the coach. Lance allowed his teammates to praise him, but kept his eyes on the other team.

He saw Keith move and his ball snapped from his hand, hitting a girl in the shoulder. Lance watched her groan and slink to the sidelines, and then faced front again. He may have had the first hit, but Keith had already tied him.

_Bring it on._

* * *

 

The moment Lance said it, it felt so _wrong_ but he couldn’t take it back.

“C’mon, _Blue_ , can’t make the play?” he’d taunted, staring at the only person still on the opposing side of the court and his damn ponytail. It came as no surprise that his final enemy was his one true rival, of course.

Keith’s brows shot up at the name and Lance inwardly cringed.

His game name was a very sacred thing, and the fact that he’d just used it for Keith felt...very strange. It didn’t belong. Blue was Lance’s name, his lucky color, his _life_ , and it felt like he was somehow drawing Keith in by calling him by that name. It made Lance feel almost naked.

And, since Lance was stuck in his own world, he only barely recovered in time to dodge the ball that Keith threw his way. It didn’t surprise him that Keith had recovered even more quickly than he had—that damn mulleted _Adonis_ didn’t have anything to _recover_ from, so of _course_ he’d tried to take advantage of Lance’s momentary lapse of judgement.

“What’s wrong, _Red_?” Keith drawled, and Lance swallowed at the foreign name that was being assigned to him, thoughts flitting to the _Legendary Defender_ match he had with Red later. “Scared?”

The last word immediately shocked Lance into action.

“Ha! Me? _Scared_? Puh-lease, Mullet, I’ve never been scared a day in my life!”

He’d thought about calling Keith _Blue_ again, but couldn’t risk it. With as vulnerable as it made him feel, he couldn’t give Keith that extra chance to beat him at his best game.

Lance whipped one of his projectiles towards Keith, and he practically _danced_ out of the way, he moved so smoothly. It was so totally unfair, he decided, that Keith could do everything with so much ease. Lance worked hard to get where he was, and Keith made it all look like child’s play.

 _And_ he looked damn good while doing it.

And then...then it was all slow motion. Keith stepped forward, lunging low to the ground to swipe one of the dodgeballs from the floor and _damn him_ for looking so _flawless_ , and Lance stepped back to do the same, remembering that one had been really close beforehand. And he found it, reaching to pick it up as he realized that his adversary was already holding two and rearing his left arm back.

Lance very forcefully ignored the way that the muscles in Keith’s shoulders were bunching up as he sprang into motion, flinging his arm forward. With a yelp, Lance dived out of the way, rolling to snap his own ball at Keith.

As soon as his ball left his hand, though, the breath left his lungs and the blue team erupted in cheers.

Keith’s second ball fell to the ground innocently, as if it hadn’t just pummeled Lance right in the pride—well, in the stomach, but same difference really—and Lance himself groaned, falling flat on his back.

He didn’t watch the way Hunk lifted Keith up in a bear hug, or how well the flush of victory and that wide smile suited his mortal enemy.

“You’re staring again,” Pidge’s tone drawled, and Lance let out strangled sound as she dropped heavily on top of him, sitting on his stomach in triumph.

“ _¡Dios mío, Pidgisita!_ ” he wheezed, though his voice was loud enough that it kind of echoed. He saw Keith turn a little in surprise, but focused on the gremlin sitting on him. “ _¡Sal de mi verga!_ ”

“I’m on your stomach, not your dick,” she retorted, deadpan, as she crossed her arms and looked down at him. “Anyway, like I told you earlier, he’s gonna think you’re even more lame than he already does. You should get up off the floor, Coach is gonna want us to play another match.”

“My dignity is lost!” Lance wailed, flailing and flopping his arms listlessly out, sprawling. “There can be no redeeming me, Pidgey-pie. You’ll have to do it without me. You can leave my corpse here!”

“I’ll tell your mom that you failed the pop quiz in calculus.”

Scrambling up so quickly that he would have dumped Pidge across the gym floor if it weren’t for her surprising reflexes, he cried, “ _¡Comepinga, Pidgisita!_ Don’t tell her that, she’ll _end_ me! I’m too young and beautiful to go like that!”

Lance clutched his red jersey over his chest, staring imploringly at his short friend as she arched an eyebrow at him.

Pidge clicked her tongue and scolded, “Language, _Lancito_.”

“Oh come _on_ , my little Pidgeot, that’s hardly something to scold me for. My _abuelita_ wouldn’t even flinch at that,” he informed her in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “In fact, _abuelita_ is the one who taught me everything I know!”

“Intriguing,” her tone said the opposite as she tugged at his shirt. “Now let’s get moving before the coach starts screaming at us. I wasn’t joking when I said he wanted to have another short match before class was over. And _no_ ,” Pidge glared at him as he opened his mouth, “you are not giving up before you start, it is not the end of the world, and you will survive seeing Keith in a ponytail and in your lucky color.”

She shoved him towards the rest of the group and stepped up beside him before he could protest, and then the coach started shouting orders at them for the next match and he lost his opportunity.

 _I’ll get you back for that_ , he thought, pouting slightly as he lined up to run for the center again.

* * *

 

Lance flopped on his bed, groaning, as Hunk closed the door behind them. He rolled onto his stomach so he could look over at his friend and then groused, “I can’t believe I lost to _Keith_. Dodgeball is my best game, man!”

“Well, you were really distracted by him,” Hunk mused absent-mindedly as he slipped a few textbooks out of his bag. “I mean, as soon as he started pulling his hair back, I think I saw you start drooling. You couldn’t have been any more obvious with that open-mouthed stare if you had tried, buddy.”

“I wasn’t staring!” his tone squeaked.

“Uh huh,” the big teddy bear turned to raise a thick brow at him, drawing the sound out. “And I’m Queen Nefertiti. C’mon, Lance, I was looking right at you and I don’t think you moved for a solid minute. Not until Pidge came up and knocked some sense into you again. But if you want to even stand a _chance_ against Red in thirty minutes, you’d better get that pizza order set up so you can send it right before you go in game.”

“ _The pizza_!” Lance gasped, rolling again to leap from his bed only to accidentally roll too far. His momentum sent him crashing to the floor and Hunk winced in sympathy, but Lance pushed himself up quickly and scrambled to his computer. “I can’t believe—after seeing him like _that_ I still have to send him a _pizza_ and then while waiting for him to get it I’ll be fighting for my _life_ —”

“Chill, Lance, it’s not that dramatic,” Hunk sighed. It was as if he already knew that trying to calm Lance down was a losing battle.

“ _Not that dramatic_?!” Lance repeated, as dramatically as possible just for the hell of it. It helped his nerves, so that was a plus. “Hunk, this is a pivotal moment, not only for my frenemies relationship with Keith but also for my rivalry with Red. This day will go down in history as the day that Lance McClain finally did something _right_ where Keith Kogane was concerned, and the day that _blu-sniper_ actually takes _CodeRedXIII_ down in a one-vee-one! Today is, like, _everything_!”

“Okay, okay, so it’s a big deal for you. I get it, man, I really do, but if you don’t get that pizza order set up and sent soon you’ll be late for your big match with Red and the teasing will be _endless_. They’ll ask if you were _scared_ or say that you’re just delaying the inevitable or—”

“I get it!” Lance whined, signing into his computer with record speed and opening the browser. He clicked on his bookmark for his favorite local pizza place that delivers and shot straight to the _Place An Order_ tab. “I still have like, fifteen minutes. I’ll have this order ready in no time, and then I’ll even log in a few minutes early to hype the alliance up for my win. _Ha_!”

“Don’t forget to confess your love with a note written on the box,” Hunk teased, and Lance heard the telltale creak of his friend’s computer chair as Hunk sat down.

“How many times do I have to tell you guys that I’m not leaving him a love note on a _pizza box_?! Jeez, Hunk, I’m more romantic than that!” he muttered a few exasperated words of Spanish under his breath as he clicked through the order screens.

When it got to the special message information, Lance _did_ leave one. It just wasn’t the kind of message that Hunk and Pidge had been trying to get him to leave all week.

_I owed you one, but now we’re even! =P_

He moved on quickly before he could overthink it, and soon enough he was checking out and making sure to change the room number to Keith’s. And then, as soon as that was done and he had declared his triumph to Hunk, Lance minimized the browser and immediately went to the _Legendary Defender_ icon on his desktop.

It was ten minutes until his duel, and the knowledge that Keith wouldn’t get his pizza for at least forty minutes was enough to let him take a few breaths. He could focus on defeating Red, as long as he managed it quickly, and then he’d work out how he felt about the whole pizza situation.

And the fact that Keith had called it a _date_.

First of all, though, he had to work his audience.

As soon as he logged into voice, Lance started in with even more bravado than he actually felt. “Hey nerds! How’s it hangin’? Are you guys ready to see me kick Red’s ass today?”

“ _I think he meant to ask if we’re ready to see Red kick_ his _ass today,_ ” Pidge’s voice was the first to respond, and it was met with chuckles from the online members of the Alliance. “ _Isn’t that right, Blue?_ ”

“ _Cállate, cabrona_ , no one asked you,” Lance tossed back.

“ _That’s not very nice_ ,” Hunk’s voice cut in before Pidge could react, and another voice agreed, tone even more stern. So Kuro was already online, too. Go figure.

“Well, neither is trying to destroy my confidence on the auspicious day of my victory!”

“ _Let’s just stay calm until your match with Red, okay?_ ” Kuro’s calm voice asked, attempting to placate everyone as usual. “ _I know you’re excited, so just stay positive and calm. I know that you’ll both do great tonight, no matter who wins._ ”

“We all know I’m winning,” he boasted, laughing.

“ _We’ll see about that,_ ” the deadpan tone of the person he’d be fighting finally sounded off, and Lance felt his adrenaline spike. “ _Maybe you’ll last more than five minutes this time. Is that a victory to you? Because it might be as close as you’ll ever get_.”

“Oh, you’re _on_ , knife boy!”

Okay, so it wasn’t the best nickname, and Red snorted at it, but it didn’t mean he was any less serious. This match was _his,_ dammit, and he’d prove it in just a few minutes. But before that, he rolled his shoulders experimentally, working some of the soreness out. He stretched his fingers and his neck carefully, and made sure his headset was situated well. And then, at last, Lance was as ready as he’d ever be.

 _This is it_ , he told himself, watching as his clock showed two minutes left. _This is the day I finally beat Red_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¡Que carajo! - what the fuck
> 
> ¡Me cago en tu madre! - I shit on your mother
> 
> Pinga - dick, used like "fuck!" or "shit!" in Cuba
> 
> Luego, Pidgisita. Ya, me voy con dios - Later, Pidge. I go with God. (basically Lance being like "this is it this is the end I'm dead")
> 
> ¡Comepinga, Pidgisita! - eat dick, Pidge! 
> 
> Cállate, cabrona - shut up, bitch/asshole
> 
> There are a few I've used before, so I didn't recap all of them. Let me know if there are any you don't know, and I'll give you the rough translation! As usual, the lovely [darkavenue](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darkavenue/pseuds/darkavenue) has been helping me with using some culturally significant Cuban slang.


	4. Level Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He had the edge on Blue, that was for sure, but the sniper always put up a fight. And he never gave up if he had even a sliver of a chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S BEEN MORE THAN THREE MONTHS
> 
> I SWEAR I DIDN'T MEAN FOR IT TO HAPPEN LIKE THIS.
> 
> Please, please forgive me! I've had a stressful time of it lately and I'm currently in the middle of prepping for a move so my other updates may also be delayed!
> 
> And someday maybe I'll learn not to publish/update my fics in the middle of the night (1:15AM CST right now yo) for publicity and shit but TODAY IS NOT THAT DAY.
> 
> Anyway, without further ado, let's get into the chapter, yes?
> 
> Welcome to Keith's POV! :)

 

Keith rolled his eyes at Blue’s bravado. Pidge was mercilessly teasing him, and the rest of the guild was more than happy to join in, but Keith just listened for a few moments.

Shiro—well, _Kuro_ in game—scolded Blue probably three more times in the next minute, and it was hard not to laugh. Especially when the hyperactive sniper whined about being scolded.

“ _C’mon, Kuro, Pidgisita was being_ way _worse than I was! Did you hear what she said?”_ he groused, his tone coming across almost childish. It had been established that Blue was his age, but the fact that he still had a bit of that childish side left was kind of endearing. Keith had lost his own childhood naivete much earlier, and he kind of envied that Blue hadn’t yet.

It could be annoying, but somehow it had grown on him.

After a particularly harsh comment from Pidge and a bout of laughter from the Alliance while Blue groaned loudly about the jokes at his expense, Keith was able to focus once more. The time for their fight ticked nearer and he felt the anticipation in his fingertips as he reached for his mouse with his right hand and rested the fingers of his left on the corresponding keyboard keys. His bottle of water and a spare were sitting in their usual place off to the side, and he found himself grinning.

He had the edge on Blue, that was for sure, but the sniper always put up a fight. And he never gave up if he had even a sliver of a chance.

And he’d been improving.

That was probably the most exciting thing about the fight that would be happening soon. Blue was nothing if not determined, and while he seemed easygoing and carefree at first, he was the type to work hard for things. When he wanted something, Blue would strive for it. From the limited knowledge that Keith had of his teammate, Blue had nearly been cut from the college program he’d dreamed about for years but had turned the situation around in just a month. Sure, he’d complained about his math class, and often begged for help, but Pidge had actually praised him and upgraded his scope as a reward when he’d succeeded.

Blue was _determined_. And that made Keith grin, flexing his fingers in anticipation.

 _“Blue, shut up,_ ” Pidge drawled. “ _Have you looked at the time?_ ”

Keith’s eyes flicked over to the time stamp in the upper right, and a thrill of anticipation ran through him. Over the loud Spanish exclamation Blue’s end— _”¡Que carajo!_ ”—Red heard Princess using her most calming tone.

“ _Oh, Pidge is right. Well, Red? Blue? Are you both ready? It’s time for your match._ ”

“Ready,” he answered simply, working hard to keep his tone level in his excitement. It was finally time to test himself against Blue and even though he’d won every time before and was confident he’d still win, he was sure that Blue would do something quirky and unexpected. It was part of why he was ranked so highly, after all.

“ _Yeah, ready to bite the dust, aren’t you, Red?_ ” Blue had adopted his usual cocky tone, and Keith rolled his eyes a little. “ _I’m ready to go, Princess. I wouldn’t want to draw out his suffering for any longer than necessary_.”

Pidge snorted, as did a few other voices that Keith honestly kept the volume lowered on because they didn’t matter as much to him as his teammates, and he heard a collective sigh from Princess and Shiro—or, in game, _Kuro_. At first it was hard to get used to calling him that.

“I don’t think I’ll be the one suffering,” he quipped back, feeling accomplished when Blue spluttered indignantly over the headset. The sniper muttered under his breath, a stream of words so low and quick that all Keith could make out was a hodge-podge of mingling Spanish and English words.

Blue sucked in a breath and then said, dramatically, _“Alright, mira, comepinga, because I’m only saying this one more time. Are you listening?_ ”

“Hmmm?” Keith prompted, trying to sound bored. He couldn’t help the grin that had crept across his features, though.

“ _You are going **down** , man. And at the end of this Arena matchup, you’ll be praising my badass skills in battle, just you wait!_”

He suppressed a laugh. Even through the headset, and through the cocky words, he could hear the grin on Blue’s face. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but he was _positive_ that Blue was enjoying himself already.

“Keep telling yourself that, Blue,” Keith said instead, still biting back the laughter even though his amusement had crept through in his tone, and he heard an indignant huff in response.

“ _I will, because it’s the **truth**_.”

“ _Red,_ ” Pidge’s tone came through, incredibly deadpan, “ _please kick his ass._ ”

“ _I can’t believe—my own friend—atrevida!_ ”

With an actual laugh as a dialog box popped up on his screen— _YOU HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED TO A DUEL BY BLU_SNIPER. IF YOU ACCEPT, YOU WILL BE TELEPORTED TO THE ARENA ON A RANDOMLY GENERATED MAP_ —Keith told Pidge, “Sure thing.”

As Blue squawked in the background, Keith moved his mouse to click the _ACCEPT_ button on the challenge.

“ _W-well let’s just see who gets the last laugh!_ ” Blue fumbled, and chuckles came from the others in their voice channel.

“Let’s go, space ranger,” Keith said playfully as the loading screen came on his computer.

A few concept art pieces of the Arena and its various battlegrounds faded in and out as he waited. Keith listened to Blue’s indignant spluttering and grinned to himself, as usual, while the scenes changed every few seconds. It had just changed to a concept of his favorite stage in the Arena when the screen went black and bore the legend, _YOUR BATTLE STARTS IN 5 SECONDS…_

_4 SECONDS…_

_3 SECONDS…_

_2 SECONDS…_

_1 SECOND…_

_BEGIN._

As the last word blinked, Keith spawned. His quick assessment of the area was disrupted by Blue’s excited whoop. It took him a few more seconds to parse the information he was seeing, but then Keith realized why his teammate was so excited.

They were in Blue’s second favorite Arena battleground, which was apparently loosely modeled off of a place called Varadero Beach. From what the excited sniper had babbled a few times in chat, the basic structure of everything from the pier to the lines of shops on the boardwalk were enough to invoke his nostalgia. It seemed that Blue and his family had visited the place several times when he was much younger, and it took only three matches on this map for him to have it down like the back of his hand.

Despite that, Keith wasn’t worried. This was one of his better maps, too.

He would deny any implication that it was a favorite of his simply because his heart fluttered whenever Blue got excited over it.

Keith shook his head and took a deep, steadying breath. He needed to focus. Blue would probably be heading for high ground, but since Keith knew all of the sniper’s favorite places, he’d try to be unpredictable. It was one of the best things about battling with Blue—he tried to do something new, something unexpected, every time. It brought to mind the time he had taken his avatar to a watch station out on the lake of one of the team battle maps, where very few snipers had ever tried their luck.

He’d managed a nearly match-winning shot at a pivotal moment and earned the Play of the Game for it from that tower.

The team battle version of the Varadero-inspired map, which was actually the sniper’s favorite map in the game, was the one that Blue had hidden on the beach, in the sand, for a ridiculous amount of time. He’d managed a few good shots before someone noticed and took him out. It was one of the battles that the sniper was still proud of and bragged about, even two months after the fact.

But on this smaller one-on-one map, Blue had limited options. He would know that Keith knew that, and they both knew which ones would offer the better tactical advantage.

Keith could think of five possible places Blue would probably avoid, as they were the most obvious choices. But he could also think of several other nooks and crannies that the sniper could hide in and use to his advantage.

He was looking forward to seeing which options his spontaneous friend would choose.

“ _You ready to lose, Red?_ ” Blue asked, his voice tight. The anticipation in his tone was obvious, but there was a tremor. The sniper’s nerves always plagued him at the beginning of any match, and if Keith played his cards right and stayed out of sight for long enough, it would put his teammate even more on edge.

There were a few snorts of amusement—at Blue’s expense—and the reminder that he’d already tried trash talking with no success, and then Keith answered, “You seem in a hurry to get your ass handed to you.”

“ _I’ll have you know I’ve improved since our last match!_ ”

“ _He knows_ ,” Hunk’s tone interjected. “ _Well, I mean, I think he knows. You do know, right Red? I mean, you guys are on the same team, after all. You’ve seen each other get better and—yo, Blue, you did realize that Red’s improved too, don’t you? He—”_

“ _I think he gets it, Hunk,_ ” Pidge chuckled, her tone amused. “ _And you act like we’re not on the same team._ ”

“ _Oh! Right!_ ” the team engineer laughed a little sheepishly. “ _I just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page. La—Blue’s stats are really good for a sniper, like we talked about the other day, and they’ve only gotten better in the last few months—”_

_“They get it, Hunk—”_

_“—and I mean, Blue needs to know that he’s still got his work cut out for him, even if he_ is _better now, because Red is in_ the top ten _, guys, in the world. For Free Agents, that is. And I mean, Blue may be top twenty now but he still has a lot of room to improve—”_

“Hunk—” Keith tried, but the rambling continued.

“ _—and they have completely different skillsets, but now they know each other so well that—_ ”

“ _Asere!”_ Blue’s tone was sharp, and it succeeded where Keith and Pidge had not. Hunk stumbled to a stop.

“ _Sorry, bro! But—_ ”

“ _No buts, man, I’m concentrating!_ ” Keith could tell that his irritation was mostly in jest. It was a weird sensation, knowing so much about someone he’d never met and probably would never meet in person, but he heard the grin in Blue’s tone and he just _knew_. “ _Just make some pastelitos this weekend and we’ll call it even!_ ”

Keith heard Hunk laugh and agree as he ducked into a building that was modeled after an actual pizzeria, if Blue was to be believed. He tried to focus on the match, and the silence that had fallen on his opponent’s end. It meant that the sniper, too, was falling into his zone.

It was time for their match to _really_ begin.

Aside from a few comments by voices Keith didn’t actually recognize very well, the chat fell silent. The alliance was no doubt spectating, as Pidge had started a betting pool with GAC, the game currency, on the outcome and almost everyone was in on it. Bets ranged anywhere from 250 GAC to 10000 GAC, which was insane. Coran had a _lot_ of faith in Lance’s improvement, it seemed, but he also had a pretty penny in his bank so losing wouldn’t harm him too much.

Keith probably wasn’t supposed to know that he was the favored candidate.

A fleeting murmured phrase in Spanish pulled him back to the present. Blue was whispering to himself, likely crossing places off of his mental list of spots, but he was speaking soft enough that Keith couldn’t make out the words. And even if he could, he probably wouldn’t know what Blue was referring to because the sniper often referred to the locations by the establishments they were supposedly based on or were similar to instead of by the numbers on the doors or streets.

He refocused his attentions on scouting the building he’d spawned in, glancing over at the time and his objectives. Twenty-eight minutes to accomplish his goal, which was to find Blue’s base, find the Scaultrite discs, and return them to his own base while also protecting his Olkari Cube.

As he carefully skirted a window, Keith spotted movement and quickly pressed himself against the wall. He peered out from his temporary hiding place and saw, just three buildings down, the barrel of a rifle. Just the very end, but it was the same direction he thought he’d seen moment, and Keith found himself completely flabbergasted.

Of all places that the clever, unpredictable sniper could have chosen, he had picked the hunker down on an _awning_?

It gave him a better view through the windows of buildings on the other side of the street, but it also made him vulnerable to enemies coming from the upper floors of the buildings behind him. And while it was an interesting choice by Blue, the biggest downfall was that Keith had spotted him while he was settling into his position. If the movement had gone unnoticed, Keith was able to admit that he probably would have missed it for a good while, but since he had seen it...well, Blue probably was going to start cursing in a few minutes.

Keith felt a smirk crossing his face.

Quickly, and as stealthily as possible, Keith made his way through to the next building. He looked around a little and snatched a paper on the counter—a hint for the location of the enemy base, sweet—and then proceeded into the taller building that was between he and Blue.

Once inside, he searched with his eyes for a few seconds before finding the stairs and then made his way up. He slowed his movements down as he crept closer to the windows, peering out at the awning of the next establishment. Blue’s back was to him, but the angle Keith was at wouldn’t give him a clean jump. He had to go higher.

Keith ducked out of sight as Blue’s head moved, only a little, to observe more of the street. Flat against the floor, and above Blue’s eye level, Keith knew he’d be safe, but caution never hurt. He forced his avatar to army crawl back to the stairs and made his way up. They carried him to the rooftop, and he once again stayed low as he made his way to the edge. Blue, unsuspecting, was still watching the street, but this angle was far superior to the one Keith had from a window.

He stepped up on the ledge, took a slow breath, and leapt.

At first, Keith was amazed that Blue yelped and rolled to his back as fast as he did in order to fend off the initial plunging attack. But as his dagger skittered off of his teammate’s shield, he saw it.

His own _shadow_ had given away his position.

 _Not bad, Blue_ , Keith couldn’t help the thought as he rolled away from a clumsy strike. The mechanics of walking on the awning were admittedly strange, not quite like walking on the ground or in a building but also not quite as bad as running on the beaches in the game. It threw him off a little with his next dodge, earning a hit and loss of approximately 3.7% of his hit points. A triumphant, “ _Ha_!” sounded through the voice chat, but was followed by a curse when Keith lunged forward with one of his abilities to take almost half of Blue’s health in one strike.

Keith lost another chunk of his own health when Blue’s knife successfully pierced the armor of his shoulder, but one more sure strike and the dialogue box proclaiming _DECEASED_ popped up over Blue.

_CodeRedXIII has killed blu_sniper._

“ _Lucky shot, knifey boy,_ ” Blue’s tone was pinched, just a little, with indignation. “ _But I’ll get you next time, mark my words!_ ”

“Still lying to yourself, sharpshooter?” Keith couldn’t help teasing. He dropped to the street and, in the thirty seconds before Blue was to respawn, he darted to one of the last buildings on the opposite side, before it opened up to the beach, and slipped inside. He started a minor healing capsule and pulled up his map to compare the hint he’d swiped. He had a few moments to breathe and he was going to use them to try and pinpoint Blue’s base.

“ _I think the one lying to himself is you, Red, but don’t worry. We’ll set that straight soon enough._ ”

Keith, as well as a few other members of the alliance, snorted in response, but he didn’t say anything. He heard Pidge teasing the sniper a little bit, and then Pidge announcing the winner of the first betting pool—who would get first blood and at approximately what time—and adding that their winnings would be 2750 GAC.

Part of him wondered why people were wasting their GAC on this, but he held his tongue.

“ _Fifteen seconds until Blue respawns_ ,” Pidge announced as if Keith couldn’t see that himself. He refocused his attention on the map in front of him, glancing back at the admittedly cryptic clue he’d found. It seemed like a logo, but only part of one, with the number _27-4_ written in the center. As he switched his gaze from the partial logo to the logos presented on the map, or trying to find some significance for the numbers, he heard Pidge’s voice again, “ _Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Blue has respawned._ ”

Keith cursed silently, so that Blue wouldn’t hear his frustration, and shifted to have a view of the only entrance to the room he was currently crouched in.

He had to figure this out so he could go straight for the main objective.

With a deep breath to calm himself— _patience yields focus_ —Keith flexed his fingers and went back to work attempting to decipher what he needed. His eyes skated across his map while he kept glancing warily at the single entrance to his current location. Blue would _not_ sneak up on him, no matter how good the sniper’s stealth stat was. He wouldn’t let it happen.

And then something caught his eye.

In the legend of the map, he recognized one of the symbols. A quick check proved that yes, it matched the partial, smudged drawing on his clue. As he continued to scour the map for more information, he spotted three instances of the symbol. Even though he wanted to stay and figure it out, he decided that he couldn’t sit still for much longer. Keith would either be found or get stuck in a corner, and he’d rather not be in either situation.

Keeping low to the ground, he slipped from his hiding place. He kept his eyes on the rooftops, or even in the few trees that had branches which might conceivably support Blue’s weight. Weird alien trees with purple bark and orange leaves were the ones that seemed most likely, so he paid a little extra attention to them as he darted from his current building to the next, behind what he assumed was this map’s version of an alien dumpster and through a hole in the wall that he may have memorized from his pre-Voltron days in one versus one battles, when there were fewer maps and he hadn’t teamed up with his brother yet. Keith had studied the maps and knew shortcuts that only the most intense players cared to use, and he was proud of that fact.

He just needed to make sure he used that same focus for his schoolwork sometimes, too. Though it sounded like he still did better at that balance than Blue, so he counted it as a small victory.

With a soft huff and a quick glance, Keith climbed to the second floor. There was a small second story walkway that connected this building to the next, and he intended to slip across. He took a careful step towards the open balcony door, then pushed off quickly. The gaping rails wouldn’t provide any cover, so speed was more important than stealth in that situation.

Speed wasn’t enough when you had a clever sharpshooter s your opponent, though.

_blu_sniper has killed CodeRedXIII._

He watched as his avatar tumbled off the walkway into a jumbled, ragdoll heap between the two buildings, hearing Blue’s victorious whoop as the _DECEASED_ dialogue box popped up and his respawn timer began.

“ _Take_ that _,_ ” Blue cheered. Keith spotted a glint of movement in the grainy black and white picture that took over when he’d died. And he spotted Blue—not in one of the low-hanging branches of the weird alien trees, but carefully perched in the upper boughs. How did the game mechanics even _allow_ that?

“Nice shot,” Keith admitted, leaning back and uncapping his water bottle for a good drink. His respawn timer still read _35 Seconds…_ and counting. But the game clock...somehow, he hadn’t realized so much time had passed. They only had about fifteen minutes left.

“ _Hear that? Red told me it was a nice shot, so it musta been good,_ ” Blue boasted, to the amused snort of Pidge and enthusiastic agreement from Hunk. Shiro and Princess had been relatively quiet, but he heard them both congratulate the sniper, with Shiro adding a warning to not get too cocky. There was still time, after all.

“ _Kuro’s right. Red’s still got more than enough time to kick your ass,_ ” Pidge teased. “ _There are twenty-five seconds left on Red’s respawn timer. And Coran gets 5520 GAC for correctly betting that Blue would get the second kill._ ”

“ _That’s m’boy, Blue!_ ” the older man cheered, to a chuckle from the alliance members that remained.

“ _I knew you’d have faith in me, my man Coran!_ ”

“ _Hey_!” Hunk’s voice was indignant. “ _What about me?!_ ”

“ _You don’t count, asere, you’ve always got faith in me!_ ” Blue teased, but then a little more seriously, he said, “ _But you did sound a little doubtful at the beginning of the fight…_ ”

Hunk began to beg for Blue’s forgiveness as Keith’s respawn timer entered the low teens, and Keith recapped his water and placed it aside, rolling his shoulders and flexing his fingers in preparation for his respawn. He’d hunker down and open his map and figure out the mystery of the numbers to find Blue’s base, and then he’d go for it.

“ _Ten seconds,_ ” Pidge’s tone slipped in over Blue reminding Hunk that his forgiveness could be bought with pastelitos. Keith returned his hands to keyboard and mouse, taking a calming breath, before Pidge’s countdown reached one. And as soon as he could, he popped open his map and searched for the significance of the numbers _27-4_.

 _Grid_ , he realized suddenly, _this map is a grid!_

Keith hurriedly searched and found the twenty-seventh row, and then counted over four blocks. A grin crawled across his features when he spotted that familiar symbol on the block in question. That had to be Blue’s base for this match, and all Keith had to do was make his way to that spot, find the Scaultrite, and he was home free.

Confidence flooded through him, and he leaned forward to prepare for his dash.

One step towards the exit and—

_Knock, knock, knock!_

If anyone had still been talking, Keith wouldn’t have heard the faint knocking. With a frown, he ducked back into his tiny room and carefully shifted his headset so one of his ears was free, flicking of the mic while he was at it.

After a few moments of silence, he was willing to turn back and assume one of his dorm neighbors was getting visitors and was just preparing to pull his headset back into the proper position when a loud series of three knocks rang out. It sounded a lot more fierce than the first set, and he cursed under his breath, glancing at the screen and sliding off his headset.

Keith scrambled to the door as quickly as he could, opening it quickly.

“What do you—”

“Hey, you Keith?” the girl popped her gum loudly, eyeing him with a tilted brow. He was in a tank and sweatpants, so he wasn’t much to look at, but he was _comfortable_.

“Yeah, who’s asking?” he responded, glancing over his shoulder quickly. His screen was still colorful, so he was still alive.

“Delivery from _Pizza My Heart_ ,” she drawled, shoving her dyed green hair behind her ear. “Already paid for. ‘Spose to tell you it’s a gift.”

For a moment, Keith was confused, but then he remembered— _Lance_. The pizza he was owed for helping with his extra sources on that huge research paper. It had completely slipped his mind that Hunk had warned him it would be a little late because Lance was being petty, but he shook himself and took the box, offering the girl a thanks as she waved her fingers and turned to leave without another word.

In seconds, the door had been closed—a little more loudly than necessary—and Keith had returned to his chair after unceremoniously tossing the box on top of the covers of his bed, next to his desk. He’d have a slice or six after he finished stomping Blue’s ass.

He shoved his headset back on, flicked his mic off mute, and immediately prepared to slip out and head for Blue’s base. He knew where it was, but he’d wasted nearly two and a half minutes with the pizza girl. That gave him little time to dance with the sniper, as much as he enjoyed their battles. And Blue’s company in general—though now was not the time to think of that.

Now, he needed to head to the next building. Right.

Blue’s base was his target.

Keith slipped out, ducking into an alleyway, and then heard a disgruntled shout from Blue and had to dodge a clumsy knife strike. He spun around and found Blue turning around to face him in return.

“ _Dios mio, Red, you scared the shit out of me!_ ”

Keith snorted, surprised, but charged forward without a word, and Blue yelped but surprisingly managed to get his light shield up in time to deflect. It wavered at the force of the skill Keith had used, though, and he knew it would probably only last for one more hit. He switched his attack pattern to strike the final blow then, a move he’d used against Blue once before, at least a month ago, but found Blue spinning away from him with what he could only describe as a snarl.

“ _No, no, no you don’t!_ ” he muttered, diving at Keith again.

For his part, Keith was pleasantly surprised. Blue definitely had improved in hand to hand combat since the last time they’d fought each other, though Keith still had the upper hand. He had more stats in strength and agility, which allowed him to dodge fairly easily. Blue still managed to nick his arm, but Keith’s next strike took the last charge of the energy shield.

Blue cursed under his breath, vehemently and in a string of mixed Spanish and English, and he lunged forward again. His blade glowed for a split second and Keith dodged—until his avatar hit the alley wall and took the brunt of the sniper’s attack in the side of his ribs. A hefty chunk of his health drained away and it was Keith’s turn to curse, but he successfully brought his own blade up into Blue’s back.

The _DECEASED_ legend that popped up slid down Keith’s vision, along with Blue’s avatar, as it slumped at his feet and as the sniper cursed.

 _CodeRedXIII has killed blu_sniper_.

Keith opened his mouth—to congratulate Blue on improvement, maybe—but faltered without speaking when his screen turned red and flashed. But he and Blue were the only ones on the map, so he shouldn’t be taking damage unless...the glowing blade. _Fuck_.

He fumbled for his quick keys to activate an antidote, but it was too late. Blue’s DoT poison deducted health again, and Keith’s screen faded to black and white, the familiar _DECEASED_ rising above his own avatar, collapsed on the ground and intermingled with Blue’s.

_blu_sniper has killed CodeRedXIII._

After a few moments of stunned silence, Keith commented, “Well played, Blue.”

With an amazed chuckle, Blue used his usual puffed up bravado to boast, “ _Of course it was. I am, after all, going to be the number one sniper—no, number one_ Free Agent _—in the game someday!_ ”

“ _Again, keep telling yourself that, Blue,_ ” Pidge remarked, and then rattled off their respawn timers, which were both still in the thirties. And after that, she continued, “ _You’re top five material, maybe, and maybe even top notch for the snipers, but only one of you can be number one on the Free Agent board and my bet’s on Red._ ”

“ _Pidgisita!_ ” Blue whined. Keith kind of wished he could see the face that the sniper was making because he sounded kind of adorable, in that oddly annoying way he had. “ _I feel so betrayed!_ ”

“ _You’ll live_ ,” she remarked, and then read off that their timers were now in the twenties.

Keith remained silent, opting to listen to the slight chatter rather than pitch in. It wasn’t unusual for him, and especially not during a one on one match, to stay quiet. He didn’t have to communicate with a team to coordinate their plan of attack, and he didn’t want to accidentally give his own location away when his opponent was in the same voice chat as he was so strategizing out loud with a friend was out of the question.

The conversation between Blue and Hunk, which had been a cheerful background as Keith watched the game clock when it fell beneath ten minutes remaining, drew to a close when Pidge announced that Blue was respawning in five seconds. That meant that Keith had about eight seconds, so he prepared to open the map and find his target location as soon as he could. He’d swipe Blue’s Scaultrite discs and book it back to his own base, which was practically on the other side of the map.

What Keith hadn't been expecting, however, was to spawn, open his map, and find himself in a location that was adjacent to Blue's base. He literally had to step outside, sneak around the initial alarm system, and duck into the rundown shack that was the front for Blue's hideout.

Grinning to himself, he prepared for what would be the final phase of their duel. He'd filch the Scaultrite discs and run to his own base. As long as he moved quickly and quietly and used the shadows to his advantage, he'd have the match in the bag. The adrenaline coursed through his veins as his excitement thrummed, and Keith darted from his spawn point.

For a rogue with his stats, it was nearly child's play to skirt the defenses and avoid the barely visible pathways of the hidden cameras. Inside, he found a paradise for any hacker or engineer, but as he was neither, he couldn't hack the database for bonus points nor configure the sensors to work for him—though Pidge could probably do it in less than three seconds. She often said hacks on the one versus one maps were child’s play. It meant that, as soon as he picked up the target items, his icon on the map would become visible for Blue to see.

He wasn't as worried as he could have been. Blue might be an incredible sniper, but time was running out and he needed to be searching for Keith's Olkari cube. Somehow finding that in the next few seconds and beating Keith in the race was pretty much the sniper's only hope.

Keith took one more breath, as quietly as he could so that Blue wouldn’t hear, and then clicked on the glowing blue discs. His avatar reached forward and a confirmation popped up: _Take the Scaultrite Discs? Y/N_. His finger stretched for the _Y_ and then, as soon as he saw his icon flash on the map, Keith took off running. He bolted from the front door and out into the street, sidestepping quickly to duck behind another alien dumpster on his way.

An alarm sounded once, the corners of Keith’s screen darkening with red, and a blue dot appeared on his map.

_blu_sniper has taken the Olkari Cube._

_Defend it!_

“ _You take my treasure, I take yours,_ ” Blue’s voice was light and teasing, but with an air of determination that made it all worthwhile.

“ _Now it’s a race!_ ” Hunk chimed in, excitedly.

“ _Yeah, against the clock_ ,” Pidge drawled, and Keith glanced back to watch it tick just under eight minutes.

If he just ran to his own base, it wouldn’t take more than a minute and a half...but if Blue had the same idea, there might be a tussle in the middle. And if either one of them died, it was assured victory for the other. It was the hint of a challenge, a possibility of more, and Keith grinned despite himself.

“Let’s go, Blue,” Keith taunted, “Race ya.”

“ _We already are!_ ” Blue retorted. “ _You ain’t got a chance, flacito!_ ”

He didn’t have any idea what he’d just been called, but he snorted anyway. “I can’t believe you’re still talking shit—”

“— _language_ —” Shiro chimed in, and Keith rolled his eyes and forged on.

“—when this match will be _my_ win. Again.”

“ _Ohoho, you did_ not _just go there, buddy. I’m rescinding your friend rights. You’re not even a rival anymore. You’re just my_ enemy _and I’m gonna kick your ass all the way to Pluto!_ ”

“You can try!”

Keith sprinted around a corner, glancing up at the map on his screen. He and Blue would be crossing paths if they both continued like they were, but it was the quickest way back to base and they both knew it.

Eight minutes and twenty-three seconds left.

And then Keith’s avatar staggered to the side, his health bar flashed, and the second shot from Blue’s energy pistol flew by his head. A triumphant _Ha!_ sounded over the voice chat but Keith forged onward, tucking into a roll to avoid the third and last shot that Blue could fire his way. But it wasn’t enough to stop him and unless the sniper had a better agility and speed than Keith did, it was still the Keith’s match.

Hunk and Coran started cheering for Blue, as well as a few other voices that Keith didn’t recognize well. He heard Pidge whooping for him to crush Blue into the dirt, though, on top of Shiro’s wish for both of them to do their best, and he tried to stop smiling.

Dueling or fighting one on one with Blue always made him happy.

But...Blue wasn’t going to be happy, because Keith was _determined_. This was his match, and his base was within his line of sight. He activated his final trump card with the three key on his keyboard and his steps came more quickly. The doors of his base came and went, and then he was depositing the dics in his drop box, and the match was over.

_The battle is decided. CodeRedXIII has defeated blu_sniper._

Blue cursed.

Most of the alliance busted into cheers. It meant that most of them would probably get a share of whatever was left in Pidge’s betting pool. He heard Coran trying to console, “ _Oh, don’t fret, Blue! I was sure it was your time to shine but there’s always next time! You’ll just have to study and be as ferocious as a mutated yalmor for your melee and then you’ll be unstoppable, m’boy!_ ”

“ _Yeah, bro,_ ” Hunk jumped in, “ _you were so close! You gotta get it next time! And you actually almost held out against Red in close combat so you’ve definitely improved so the only way to go is up! I mean, unless someone else starts climbing faster than you. And gets better faster. Or unless someone—_ ”

“ _Not helping, Hunk,_ ” Pidge cut in, and he actually stopped talking with a sheepish _sorry_. “ _Anyway, everyone’s winnings are in the mailbox now so enjoy_!”

Keith leaned back and cut over some of the cheers, “Good match, Blue. Just try to be a little quicker next time and it might be a challenge.”

Pidge supplemented the background, “ _Daaamn_ ,” and he heard a few others imitate. Someone even whispered, _“Shots fired_ ,” but he had no idea who.

Instead of going into a rant, Blue groaned. There was a shuffling that Keith imagined was Blue dragging a hand down his face in exasperation, and then the sniper finally started, “ _You were awesome, like always. You fight good,_ ” he said part of that with the air of someone who was quoting something. Before Keith could puzzle through it, his teammate continued, “ _I’m gonna just take the ‘good match’ and pretend you didn’t say any of that other stuff. This time. This is your one freebie, Red, my man, and only because you’re going to eat your words next time._ ”

“Sure I will,” Keith responded drily, leaning over to flick open the lid of the pizza box on his bed. His stomach was rumbling and the high from his victory only made him more aware of the pepperoni scent that permeated his room. As he lifted a slice from the box, he added, “Don’t forget to recharge your shield, Blue.”

“ _Shit! You’re right. Thanks, man_!”

As the first bite of cheesy goodness hit his tongue, Keith glanced over to the pizza box again, and a message written in Sharpie on the lid caught his attention.

_I owed you one, but now we’re even. =P_

Of course that would be Lance’s response. It must have torn him up to have to owe Keith _anything_ , especially since Lance hated him so much. Or...well, Keith supposed they’d crossed into toleration, at least.

So he retrieved his phone from his desk, listening as Princess admitted to winning over a thousand GAC from the betting pool without disclosing the full amount even though Pidge would release her information later anyway to prove she did it fairly, and snapped a photo of the pizza. He attached it to a text to Lance and clicked send.

_[07:47 PM] Keith: I got the pizza._

_[07:47 PM] Keith: Thanks._

“ _Red, are you even listening?_ ” Pidge’s tone drew him back to the voice chat, and he swallowed his bite of pizza before answering.

“Yeah no. Sorry about that, I was grabbing some food. What did you say?”

“ _Geez, a warning next time you leave. Anyway, we were making plans for the next team raid. They’re releasing some new items on the Balmera next Tuesday, so I was thinking that one. There’s not really anything rogue-specific, but there’s gonna be a new drone model—”_

_“—of course that’s what you want to do it for, Pidgisita—”_

_“—and some engineering tools that would be major upgrades to what Hunk’s got. Plus some new crystals we can use to power up some of our gear. What do you say?”_

“What has everyone else said?”

“ _Everyone so far has agreed,_ ” Princess offered, her accented tone almost businesslike. “ _The crystals will be able to enhance your energy shields so that they can take nearly double the damage before they falter. Almost six strikes instead of the usual three. I think it’s well worth it._ ”

“Then I’m in,” Keith shrugged, forgetting they wouldn’t see. “It’s always good to upgrade our gear when we can.”

“ _Any time that works best? Or just eight, like usual?_ ” this was Shiro piping up, probably glancing at his calendar. He had a lot more on his plate than he let on so eight was the time that worked best for him, but Shiro would never say that aloud. Keith held his tongue, too. His brother was too damn nice for his own good.

“ _Works for me,_ ” Blue’s voice chimed, cheerful again. He sure bounced back from defeat quickly.

“ _Yeah. I might be just a couple of minutes behind because my class gets out at seven fifty, but that’s the usual, isn’t it?_ ” Hunk said, laughing a little at himself.

Pidge hummed and said, “ _I’ll be there_.”

“Eight’s fine,” Keith rounded out the team, reaching for another slice of pizza.

He fell into the usual routine of chatting post-match, listening as a few other members of the alliance went out into the open world for a few quests as he worked his way through half of the pizza.

* * *

 

“So...that flirty tone you used with Blue in that match…”

“Shiro,” Keith groaned, closing the aviation textbook in front of him. “Please, not now. I’m trying to study. We’re about to have the weekly study group with Matt and the three stooges and I’m really not in the mood.”

“Keith,” Shiro sighed, still perusing his own notes. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but you’ve been bottling it up for ages.”

The younger sibling leaned back in his chair, staring up at the tiles of the library ceiling. There were no workers nearby to shush them, but he tried to keep his voice low and regulated anyway when he next spoke.

“I told you already, Shiro. He probably lives a long way away, and he’s probably not interested. Not to mention I don’t even know what he looks like.”

“Which means he could be _really close_ and you wouldn’t know it.”

Shiro, always the voice of reason.

“I wouldn’t want to know,” Keith lied, pushing himself to his feet. “I’m content with just being his friend, Shiro. It’s just a cyber crush and it’ll go away, okay? I need to focus more on school anyway.”

The elder brother closed his book and shuffled his notes to find a different sheet. Not finding it, he shook his head and then looked up at Keith. “If you want to focus more on school, then where are you going? Study group starts in ten minutes.”

“Downstairs for a coffee.”

“I’ll trust you. Just don’t forget to come _back_.”

Keith just raised his hand in farewell and headed down the stairs. He actually hadn’t intended to get a coffee when he’d stood to leave, but as he made his way down to the library’s lower level and the scent of it permeated his senses, he decided to make good on his excuse. Coffee would be great, though he still wasn’t sure what he’d get. Probably a double shot espresso or a plain coffee.

With an amused snort, he wondered if he should buy a black coffee for everyone in the study group. Imagining Lance’s betrayed face, the way he’d curse without his three sugars and two creamers and ask how Keith could drink it black, brought a smile to his face. The loudmouth preferred crazy drinks with more sugary syrup than coffee, after all.

But...they could get their own coffee if they wanted it. It was a quick walk down the steps.

He joined the line of students waiting for coffee and allowed his mind to wander again, but unfortunately it drifted back to the reason he’d left Shiro alone to hold their usual study group table—Blue. And more specifically, the little cyber crush he was struggling to ignore.

Keith liked Blue.

He could admit it, but he was also cautious. For one, the Voltron Alliance operated under an unwritten rule that members of the same team couldn’t date each other. Apparently, it’s how one of the other teams had fallen apart, though Princess wouldn’t say which one. Keith wasn’t about to jeopardize the amazing teamwork they had built up because of a stupid _crush_.

For another, he didn’t really know anything about Blue. Nothing super meaningful, anyway. He knew that Blue’s voice was smooth and rich when he was being genuine, that it pitched up from excitement and that he pitched it lower to deliver subpar pick-up lines. He knew that Blue had several siblings and at least part of his early childhood was spent in Cuba. And he didn’t _know_ but rather _suspected_ that Blue hid his many insecurities behind his bravado, though to what extent it was impossible for Keith to tell.

Keith wasn’t willing to push it. For all he knew, Blue might not like other men.

Yeah, it was best that he just let things slide.

He nodded to himself as he came to that conclusion, for perhaps the hundredth time, and then stepped up to the counter to order his coffee.

“What can I get you, dear?” the cheerful middle-aged woman asked, beaming. She was his favorite barista in the library. “Same regular black coffee as usual?”

“Please,” Keith offered her a grin.

“Coming right up!” she beamed. “Are you here to study with your friends again?”

Even though he was surprised that she remembered why they all came to the library, Keith nodded and answered, “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Good, good! You study well, you hear?” she laughed as she took his money in exchange for the drink, and then she moved onto the next customer as he slipped away.

With a sigh, he rolled his shoulders and lifted his coffee up, taking a testing sip. _Hot_. Keith lowered the cup as he slipped into the stairwell. He paused a moment to lean against the wall, blowing at the top of his drink and taking another sip, before he registered a voice above.

It was echoey, but...he recognized it.

“ _Clases van bien_ , yeah— _espera, qué? Pidge te dijo del examen_? That little bitch!—Yeah, _es mi amigita, pero no tengo que ser agradable si ella va detrás de mi espalda a—Le diste_ peanut butter cookies _por la izquierda?_ Dammit, Mom!”

A loud groan permeated the stairwell, but Keith remained frozen at the bottom.

_Blue...goes to Garrison U?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, Spanish is courtesy of the lovely and effervescent [Dark](667-darkavenue)
> 
> Asere - essentially "bro/bruh"
> 
> “Clases van bien, yeah—espera, qué? Pidge te dijo del examen? That little bitch!—Yeah, es mi amigita, pero no tengo que ser agradable si ella va detrás de mi espalda a—Le diste peanut butter cookies por la izquierda? Dammit, Mom!” - Classes are good, yeah-wait, what? Pidge told you about that test? That little bitch!-Yeah, she's my friend, but I don't have to play nice when she's going behind my back to-why did you bribe her with peanut butter cookies? Dammit, Mom!
> 
> Most others should have been mentioned in previous chapters, but if there are any that I missed, let me know! :)


	5. Level Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of telling Shiro there was nothing wrong, he’d mouthed 'later', and that had been the end of it. Maybe if Shiro had been worse at reading lips, he’d have misunderstood it as paper and moved on to let Keith struggle through the homework alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so first off--I'M SO SORRY.
> 
> I know this has been a long delay, and anyone who was reading this fic probably isn't anymore, but for those of you that are still here, I'll get started right away! Please read the notes at the bottom!

 

When Lance managed to get off the phone with his mother by telling her it was time for their study group, he heaved a huge sigh and left the stairwell, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t expected to keep his bad exam grade from his mother for very long, but the fact that the woman had bribed Pidge with peanut butter cookies was a whole new level of betrayal. A betrayal that he wasn’t about to let the little demon live down.

In fact, as the table came into view, where Pidge and Hunk had already taken up seats with Shiro and Matt, Lance scowled.

“ _ Pidgisita _ , how  _ could _ you?” he demanded loudly, hands on his hips as he came to a halt before them.

Without even looking up from her laptop, she shrugged. “Your mom’s peanut butter cookies, Lance. You know I couldn’t possibly say no to that.”

The others at the table looked between them with curiosity and, in Matt’s case, amusement. Lance wasn’t surprised. He often suspected that Pidge had learned some of her dirty tricks from the older Holt...or even vice-versa. She was pretty devious, so maybe he’d picked them up from her.

“ _ Betrayer _ ,” Lance whined, flopping unceremoniously into the chair that Keith’s stuff  _ wasn’t  _ hanging on already. Of course Pidge and Hunk would leave  _ that _ seat for him. He could practically sense Pidge’s handiwork on that, too. He decided to ignore that one for now. “You  _ know _ how she gets with grades! And it was just  _ one _ test! Couldn’t you have held out until the next test? When I do better?”

“Where’s the guarantee you’ll do better?” Pidge shot back, finally glancing up at him, an amused quirk to her brow. “Give me a guarantee of that magnitude, Lance, and maybe I won’t tell your mother your grades before you can.”

“Hunk doesn’t rat me out!” Lance tossed his arm around his roommate’s shoulders, pouting. At least Hunk was on his left, a nice cushion just in case conversation with Keith to his right spiralled downhill. “Do you, buddy?”

“Of course not, bro,” Hunk patted him on the back, and Lance beamed at him.

“See? Is it so hard to be  _ nice _ to me, Pidgey-pie?” 

“You don’t understand, Lance.  _ Peanut butter cookies _ were on the line,” Matt snorted, reaching over to ruffle Pidge’s hair before she could fend him off. She scowled and tried to shake the strands back into place, smacking him in the shoulder. “Katie will do  _ anything _ when it comes to a peanut butter cookie, even if it means throwing one of her best friends under the bus.”

“Oh, shut up,” she slugged him in the arm halfheartedly and Matt just laughed, turning back to his own laptop. “It was for the cookies and the added bonus of seeing Lance act like a fool and adding more to my blackmail pool.”

“Blackmail pool?” Shiro quirked a brow. “You do know that’s not entirely legal, don’t you?”

She shrugged noncommittally and Shiro just sighed, shaking his head as he flipped another page in his textbook.

“You just live to make me suffer,” Lance groaned, dropping his head backwards. It was thanks to this that he saw Keith topping the stairs, coffee in hand and a thoughtful look on his face. “Oh, look. Keith! Hey, Keeeeeith!”

The man in question started, looking up in surprise, and then scowled. That was more typical of Keith than the thoughtful expression from just beforehand, but Lance couldn’t shake that other image–Keith, with his brows furrowed in thought, as if he was trying to puzzle through a problem worse than a differential equation.  _ Cute _ .

“There you are,” Shiro observed, and he smiled, almost teasingly. “I thought you’d conveniently forgotten to come back.”

“Ha, ha,” Keith laughed dryly, rolling his eyes as he slipped into the seat next to Lance. “I told you I was just getting a coffee, Shiro.”

Shiro hummed in response, turning back to his reading without saying a word. Lance took that as his cue to start pulling his homework from his bag and, with a sigh, pulled out his math. It was a supplementary assignment for people who’d messed up on the test that his mother had just called him about, and while it wouldn’t even half make up for the fifty-two percent he’d been given, it was a start. It would help him stay on the passing side of a C for longer if he really couldn’t get the hang of the equations.

Without much more conversation, the group fell into the usual groove; Matt and Pidge heckling each other as usual, Shiro playing mediator, and Hunk being cheerful and helpful if anyone struggled with anything. Keith was his normal stoic self, but since they were sitting side by side, Lance wasn’t surprised that he was pretty withdrawn. They still weren’t exactly best friends material, and Lance’s usual attitude towards Keith didn’t really help.

The pigtails crusher that Pidge always accused him of being was becoming more and more recognizable by the day and he  _ hated _ it.

He shook his head to chase distraction away. His grades were more important than worrying about his relationship or lack thereof, so he pulled his attention away from Keith and focused it once more upon the math in front of him. 

With just a few moments of staring down at the fourth problem, Lance knew he was going to have to ask for Hunk’s help more often than he would have liked. At least Hunk was a patient teacher; nothing like that little  _ gremlin _ . 

Whenever Pidge was asked, she’d get vicious. If he messed up, she’d smack a ruler across his knuckles or something ridiculous, or at least ridicule him for a solid five minutes before caving and actually explaining it. She was great at explaining it when she actually put her mind to it. After all, Pidge was better at math than anyone except maybe her brother–curse that Holt family  _ genius _ gene–but Hunk was right up there too, and definitely more advanced than Lance. And he and his gentle ways of teaching were a  _ lifesaver _ .

In fact, Lance finished the sheet within the first hour. He stretched and claimed victory over his math, loud enough that he got a scathing shushing from the librarian at the reference desk about four tables away, and then pulled out his next homework. He had some reading to do, and he had to answer the even numbered questions at the end of the chapter.

He took a few moments to relax, though, and decided he could watch Keith work for a little while, as discretely as possible.

It took him about three minutes to notice that Keith wasn’t even focusing on his work. That was a little unusual, because even Keith was more studious than Lance was. He  _ looked _ like he was working from a distance, and it looked like Keith had been intending to do the same homework that Lance had just pulled out, since it was for a class they shared, but he hadn’t turned a textbook page since Lance had been watching. It didn’t even look like he was reading it–his eyes weren’t following the monotonous lines of text, and he wasn’t scribbling down notes to use for answering the questions in the back of the chapter like usual.

“Yo, Keithy-boy, whatcha thinking about?” the words tumbled forth before he could stop them, and Lance silently cursed himself.

Keith’s shoulders twitched a little in surprise and he blinked, looking up at Lance. He looked more confused than disdainful, but his lips tugged into a little frown and he looked back to the textbook.

“Nothing important,” he responded tersely, and Lance watched his eyes trail down the text in front of him. 

Lance didn’t like that blank, confused look on him. It just didn’t...fit. Keith was passion and impulse, not this indecision he was seeing. And Lance only had one surefire way to rile him up.

“Oh yeah? Well, you know what you  _ should _ be thinking about?” he grinned cheekily. “The paper we have to write next week. And you know why, my dear mullet? Because I’m gonna ace it and blow you out of the water!”

Keith snorted, rolling his eyes and pulling his attention back to Lance. There was a little spark, and Lance counted it as a victory. “Keep telling yourself that, Lance.”

“I bet I’ll do better than you!”

A dark brow arched high in challenge. “How much?”

“Not this again,” Pidge muttered under her breath, still working on whatever coding project she’d been doing. Lance ignored her.

“I dunno, I feel like Chinese takeout is a pretty good prize. I do like some good old General Tso’s. Or chicken lo mein…” Lance grinned, spinning his pencil around in his hands. “The loser, whoever gets the worst grade, owes the winner a meal of their choosing from Twin Dragons!”

After a few moments, Keith nodded. “I’ll make sure to eat a light lunch when we get the grade back and you find out that I’ve won.”

“Better not do that, Keithy-boy, or you’ll go hungry!” Lance puffed up his chest, beaming. 

He scoffed. “Sure I will,” he offered, but turned his attention back to his book. Odd. Keith usually got pretty heated if Lance dangled the right bait. Lance was a weak man, and while Keith in a ponytail took the cake, the Keith with a fire in his eyes made Lance’s chest squeeze. This time, though, he only saw a flicker of that usual passion, so either Keith was learning to become the better man– _ unlikely _ –or he really had something on his mind and Lance couldn’t distract him any longer.

For once, Lance decided to bite his tongue and hunker down to work on his assignments.

He really couldn’t afford to keep buying Keith dinner all the time.

* * *

 

Lance was annoying, but Keith really thought he might have some kind of weird sixth sense. He’d interrupted right as Keith’s thoughts started spiralling, and he might have slammed his hands on the table and left if it hadn’t been for that timely distraction. 

When Keith actually thought about it, Lance seemed to do things like this a lot. He just wasn’t usually on the receiving end until now, so he hadn’t really paid much attention. He’d noticed the way Lance would snap someone back to reality if they were getting too frustrated at something, or even the way he had leaned casually against Hunk’s shoulder in past weeks whenever the big guy tensed up or started to stress over his work. 

Definitely some sort of sixth sense. He pulled people out of their funks, and Keith wasn’t sure how to deal with the idea of owing him something.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to owe him anything, though. Lance had drawn enough attention by making another spectacle that Shiro cast a questioning look in Keith’s direction, arching an eyebrow in curiosity. Grimacing, Keith shook his head and mouthed  _ later _ at him, silently cursing. 

If possible, Shiro’s brow raised even higher, but he looked back to his own homework and Keith breathed an inward sigh of relief. He was still struggling with his thoughts without actually saying them out loud; he didn’t want to admit them just yet.

He didn’t want to admit that he was almost positive that he’d heard Blue’s voice in the stairwell, and he certainly didn’t want to have that conversation with current company. He knew the others  _ played _ , sure, or that they had, but bringing up a team like the Paladins of Voltron and some of the top ranking free agents didn’t feel right. It felt almost like he was bragging about it. No, it was best to have that discussion in private with Shiro after the study group had ended. Or even better: he could avoid it entirely, although it was very unlikely that Shiro would forget.

It was better to focus on his reading and the questions at the end of the chapter, and then on the wager that Lance had put forward. He  _ had _ been craving Chinese, and Twin Dragons was the best delivery around.

“Hey, Pidge,” he heard Matt say, but tuned him out. There was a garbled continuation of a bunch of technical jargon, and Keith tried to zero in on his textbook.

After a while, he was able to work through the assignment and move on to the next, making great progress before the study group came to an end. It was, at any rate, much more progress than he had anticipated after the daze he had started with.

As he and Shiro trekked back to their room, however, his internal distress returned.

There was always an off-chance that he’d heard wrong. After all, Blue’s voice had only ever been through his headset. Surely there were some mechanical flaws in the sound that the echoing stairwell couldn’t reproduce. It was just someone with a similar accent and tone, Keith told himself. 

He didn’t believe it.

“So…” Shiro’s voice cut across his thoughts. “When were you going to tell me what had you so distracted at the study group? Was it when we returned to the room, or after we turned the lights off, like preteens at a slumber party?”

“Shut up,” Keith groaned, nudging him with a shoulder. “It’s nothing, Shiro.”

“Ah, but you mouthed a  _ later _ at me, didn’t you?”

Keith inwardly cursed. He’d forgotten that Shiro had uncanny talent for everything, including remembering his momentary lapse of judgement. Instead of telling Shiro there was nothing wrong, he’d mouthed  _ later _ , and that had been the end of it. Maybe if Shiro had been worse at reading lips, he’d have misunderstood it as  _ paper _ and moved on to let Keith struggle through the homework alone. But Shiro was even great at reading lips, so that hope was dashed. And his lie detector was second only to a mother’s, Keith swore.

“It’s really nothing, I was just distracted.”

Raising an eyebrow, Shiro turned to face forward again. “Well, it takes a lot to distract you, Keith. And you didn’t even get mad at Lance for poking fun and making another bet.”

Keith sighed.

“I heard thought I heard someone in the stairwell ahead of me that shouldn’t have been there,” he finally said, shrugging as he shouldered forward, trudging ahead of Shiro. “My mind’s playing tricks on me, is all.”

“What do you mean?” Shiro sounded curious. “If you’re talking about Lance, he didn’t get there much before you, so he was almost as late as you were. He was probably at the top of the stairs when you started up or something.”

“I wasn’t late.”

“Okay, you were early, and then you left and didn’t get back until late. Same thing. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“I didn’t hear  _ Lance _ ,” Keith groaned, his hands shoved in his pockets as he hunched his shoulders even higher. “I heard  _ Blue _ . Talking in Spanish or something? Or maybe it was Lance, I don’t know. But it echoed like Blue and it sounded just like him and I panicked, okay?” he took a deep breath. “It’s stupid, I know. I overreacted. I’m fine, Shiro.”

“Are you...disappointed?”

“What, that I probably mistook Lance for Blue? Or that Blue doesn’t go to Garrison U like I thought for a while? No, I’m not. Yes, I am. Maybe? I don’t even  _ know _ !” 

If he was the type for dramatic gestures, like Lance, his hands would be in the air. Instead, Keith tried to draw himself in even more. Now that Shiro had mentioned Lance was probably the one in the stairwell, he did feel a little disappointed. If Lance was Blue, he’d probably know it. Lance was a braggart and he probably wouldn’t have been able to keep something like his ranking in  _ Legendary Defender _ to himself, especially if he thought he could use it against Keith. 

_ But you haven’t really heard Lance speak in Spanish _ , his mind whispered, but Keith dismissed the thought. He’d heard  _ Pidgisita _ enough times that he thought he knew well enough how Lance sounded. 

And it wasn’t like Blue.

Shiro startled him when he placed his hand on Keith’s shoulder, and he just smiled almost knowingly at Keith. “I know you like him, Keith. Well,  _ both _ of them. Even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“It’s easier to like someone that doesn’t hate you,” he offered in response, tone flat.

“Lance doesn’t hate you,” Shiro sounded a little exasperated. “He’s just challenging you because it’s the only way he can usually get your attention. And since both of you are stubborn, neither of you wants to reach out to be friendly.”

Keith frowned and looked up at his elder brother. “You do know who you’re talking about, don’t you?”

He only smiled softly again and shrugged. Shiro let his hand fall from Keith’s shoulder and said, “You never know. People can surprise you.”

“Yeah, other people,” Keith snorted. “But not Lance.”

_ Lance hates me _ , he added silently, but he thought Shiro understood. 

Shiro just sighed and shook his head. “We might think we know everything about him, but I’m sure there’s more to Lance than meets the eye. He’s going to surprise us all someday, Keith, just you wait.”

Keith only wished that he could quell the tiny little flame of hope in his chest.

* * *

 

After he got Shiro to stop nagging him about Lance and Blue and homework, Keith logged into  _ Legendary Defender _ for a little while. Shiro was eyeballs deep in his grad work so Keith probably had at least two hours before he got nagged about homework again, and he needed a break from everything.  _ Legendary Defender _ had always been the very best escapism tactic he’d ever found.

Keith had barely been on for ten minutes when Princess opened a private voice line and asked him to go on a couple of gathering missions with her.

“ _ Coran really wants some Scaultrite, _ ” she explained, sounding a little sheepish. “ _ He insists that he’s got a new engineering blueprint that can help revenue or something to that effect. _ ”

“You don’t have to explain, Princess, it’s no big deal. I didn’t have anything else to do tonight anyway,”  _ except the homework Shiro thinks is already done _ , he thought to himself, “so it’s fine.”

“ _ Thank you, Red _ !” she laughed a little. “ _ I was going to ask Pidge, but she’s apparently doing some crafting tonight with Hunk and Coran.” _

“Glad to know I was your second choice,” he drawled, teasing. It was a pleasant change from the tension that had been hanging over him all day, and the fact that Blue was currently offline was, for once, a blessing.

“ _ Oh, hush _ ,” she snorted. “ _ To the Weblum first, then? _ ”

“I’ll follow your lead,” Keith agreed.

Princess laughed, but sent a party invite. Keith accepted it, and the two boarded a pod transport to the nearest space station, and from there paid 300 GAC apiece to fly to the Weblum.

“ _ I’m starting to agree with Pidge _ ,” Princess declared. He could hear her tapping her fingers against her desk, just barely. Her good headset had quit recently, so she was using an older one while her new one shipped, and the quality of this one was definitely inferior to the previous. 

“About what?”

“ _ Needing our own ships. The pods are basically just portals to central hubs and from there we’ve got to pay money for common flights. It would be so much easier to take a straight shot from our own bay to our destination, but they’re working on upgrading our only ship right now.” _

Keith snorted. “Princess, you’re sounding a lot like your name, there.”

She huffed. “ _ Well, it’s true.” _

“Well, when the Paladins win the next tournament, we’ll have the money to buy another one, and then you’ll be a step closer to that goal. Get ready, Princess, the flight’s almost over and we’ve got to make it into the Weblum.”

“ _ If we had our own ships, we wouldn’t have to be air-dropped like this. _ ”

“Is it really considered an air-drop in space?”

After a brief silence, she conceded, “ _ I really don’t know. Hush.” _

Keith laughed to himself and prepared for the descent to the Weblum. 

They made it inside easily _ – _ a feat they’d practiced so often it was almost like second nature, it seemed. From the successful infiltration, the duo made their way through the Weblum’s insides, fighting off some mobs and collecting other random ingredients and drops as they did so. It was pretty easy pickings, and they fell into a pretty easy camaraderie. Princess was pretty easy to work with, after all. Sometimes Keith wondered if it had anything to do with her Diplomat class, but he also figured it was just her personality.

“ _ So, Red, I actually wanted to ask you something, _ ” Princess asked after a brief lull in conversation as they made their way through the second stomach. Keith was trying to remember if it had four or six stomachs without actually pulling up the map, but he was failing.

He waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, he prompted, “Go ahead.”

“ _ I’ve been wondering lately if you...might actually like a member of the team?” _ she asked slowly, as if she was carefully choosing her words. His mouth dropped and he scrambled to find something to say, but she forged on, both in motion and in conversation. “ _ I know I seem to have a pretty strict policy on relationships within the teams? But whatever you and Blue have going on is actually...very beneficial for the Alliance, I think.” _

“Th-there’s nothing going on!” Keith managed, praying that his voice hadn’t cracked.

“ _ And that’s exactly why I wanted to tell you that you have my blessing,” _ Princess stated in a matter-of-fact tone. “ _ Not that you really need it. It’s not like our relationship rule for the Alliance is actually one hundred percent binding, but you have my blessing, and Coran’s, too. We’ve talked it over–” _

_ –great _ , Keith thought,  _ they’ve been talking about my nonexistent love life. _

He wondered if Shiro had been in on it, too.

“– _ and we’ve come to the conclusion that you are good for each other. You drive each other to greater heights, and Blue improves with each and every match the two of you have with or against each other. You learn from each other, and you play off of each other really well. And, forgive me if I’m assuming too much, but it seems like you really do care about him.” _

“Have you been talking to Sh–Kuro?” he stumbled, flinching at the near slip. “He won’t stop pestering me about it. Did he put you up to this?”

“ _ No one put me up to this, Red, please don’t be angry. I just want what makes you happy? And I feel like our unofficial rule against inter-team relationships has been holding you back from that happiness.” _

Keith sighed. “It’s not like that, Princess. Even if the rule  _ wasn’t _ there, I wouldn’t do anything about it. What am I supposed to say to him, huh? He’s just a voice on the other side of the internet, somewhere, and I’m not likely to meet up with him any time soon.”

“... _ So you  _ do _ like him _ .”

“...Yeah.”

“ _ I won’t force you to say anything, Red, but just...don’t give up, okay?” _ she sounded genuinely concerned. “ _ I know we haven’t shared personal information with each other or anything, but you never know. He could be closer than you think, right? _ ”

“Now you really sound like you’ve been talking to Kuro,” Keith snorted. “Watch out, Princess, you’ve got some mobs behind you.”

“ _ Oh–thanks, Red. And...please, if you ever want to talk, I’ll be here for you. Okay? I know what it’s like to feel attracted to someone even though you’ve only ever heard their voice.” _

He finished off the last monster spawn and then couldn’t help but laugh at himself, just a little. Of course he would, somehow, be talking about his apparently not-so-secret affections twice in one day. Surprisingly, talking with Princess was less nerve-wracking than talking to Shiro, though.

So he said the only other thing he could think of.

“Thanks, Princess. I’ll remember that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE GOES:
> 
> Honestly, there are several factors that go into how long this chapter took me to write and post, the least of which being that writing it was a struggle. So I'll list a few things:
> 
> 1) Working full time, doing a Big Bang, and also starting...like three other fics. Those factors do not help each other in the least. And, more recently, I returned to school for my second Bachelor's degree, so there are now classes on top of that.  
> 2) I fought and fought with myself because a friend of mine that I respect very much had complained about non-native Spanish speakers using Spanish in their fics. While I have always been running what phrases I use by a native speaker for cohesion and even applicability in certain situations, the fact that another friend was really against this was a huge kick in my anxiety. I very nearly scrapped the entire fic because Lance speaking Spanish, especially occasional exclamations or conversations on the phone with his mother, was a pretty big part of Extra Pining (as you can see from this chapter). Eventually, I came to the decision to keep writing, but I'm going to slowly phase some of the heavier Spanish out so that, hopefully, its absence isn't noticed.  
> 3) CHARACTERIZATION. Boy, is this one that I lost sleep over (for real). More friends of mine started to complain about the use of fanon Klance - where they're all mushy and pining and really...not themselves. And (hello anxiety) because of that, I immediately started to believe that all of my works revolved around the fanon rather than the canon. While they assured me that the Klance I write is "unique to me"...it didn't help me. It honestly made me 100% positive that the Klance I write in this fic is more on the fanon side, and it was another reason I considered just scrapping this fic. Only after several conversations was I half convinced that my "unique" versions are alright because this is an AU, therefore their experiences and the things that shape them as characters are, by definition, different.  
> And finally:  
> 4) Antis on tumblr. Antis that are against other ships and are more outspoken about it are generally klance shippers. Not always, but it is more frequent. And the retaliation against klance shippers by everyone else. Fandom is a terrifying place, especially on tumblr, and I despise it with nearly every fiber of my being. It's why I've slowly pulled out of the VLD fandom as far as the Hellsite is concerned. And being associated with the antis just because I am a klance shipper made me honestly dislike klance for a while, which was not conducive to writing a klance fic.
> 
> Regardless, it was going to hurt even more if I didn't at least try to finish this fic, because I put so much into it at the start. And now, I've finally updated after several months of on again, off again labor.
> 
> If you're still with me, and especially if you read this whole huge A/N, thank you so much! And if you're new to this fic, thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hit me up on tumblr at [battleshidge](http://battleshidge.tumblr.com/) or on my main at [panda013](http://panda013.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> Translations for chapter 1:
> 
> Adiós, mi corazón - goodbye, my heart!
> 
> Mierda - shit
> 
> Dios mío - oh my God
> 
> Sinverguenza, como creces tan ràpida - (essentially) punk, you grew up so fast! Note: Sinverguenza is translated, on google translate, as "scoundrel" but Dark assured me, depending on how it's used, it can mean "punk" (endearingly) or "you fucker". I am okay with this.
> 
> Que pinga! - what the fuck (in Cuban slang), or literally, "what dick"
> 
> Sal de mi verga - get off my dick (ah, yes, my favorite thing to yell at people when I'm playing video games. and no, that's not even sarcasm; it's 100% true)


End file.
